|
A key update in all this analysis - establishing a single setting that hugely affect WBPP performance (confirmed with Adam Block today).
In PixInsight's WBPP - under the light frames tab, when Local Normalisation is used - you can set the selection method to one of two choices - PSF Flux evaluation or Multiscale analysis. Given you are on Windows 11 - if your image has sufficient stars - one should always set the Local Normalisation selection method to PSF Flux evaluation method.
Whilst this setting makes no major difference to run times under Windows 10 - under Windows 11 it makes a major difference.
I tried Win 11 with this option set to multiscale analysis and WBPP times went back up to 2.5 hours - with no improvement in the final master quality. So a lot more calculations - and many of them single threaded - meaning slow - for no gain.
Adam confirmed this to me today - stating the PSF flux evaluation method was the newer algorithim - and should be relied on as the default approach. It is only when there are insufficient stars that one should consider falling back to multiscale analysis! Adam stated when I queired which method I should use that "PSF flux evaluation is correct. All this means is that is it calculating the scaling factor (for normalization purposes) by doing the photometry (of sorts) on the stars. The Multiscale method is the old method... the PSF Flux is the default nowadays. I hope to goodness I never recommended using Multiscale (with exceptions in special cases where there are no stars). PSF flus measurements are the default in WBPP as well."
So the data again with the Scale evaluation method specified:
Intel 7820X - 4.5 hours on Windows 11 Pro - PSF Flux evaluation
Dual Xeons - 36 cores 72 logical processors - 3 hours under Windows 10 Pro - PSF Flux evaluation
Dual Xeons - 36 cores and 36 logical processors - 2 hours under Windows 10 Pro - PSF flux
Dual Xeons - 36 cores - hyper threading off - 2 hours 24 minutes under Windows 11 Pro - Multiscale analysis!
Dual Xeons - 36 cores - hyper threading off - 54 minutes under Windows 11 Pro - PSF flux evaluation!
So bottom line - for WBPP on a Microsoft platform - use Windows 11 Pro and with Local Normalisation ensure you set the selection method to PSF Flux evaluation!
|