StarWipe 0.7b released; software lightpollution filter and contrast enhancer
Hi,
I've been working on a bunch of image processing 'hacks', specifically for people on a sub-shoestring budget with 'taped together' cheap off-the-shelf consumer gear like myself.
I'm now releasing one of these as I feel it's mature/useful enough for others to use - amateurs and 'pros' alike.
StarWipe started out as a digital replacement for a light pollution filter, but the algorithm turned out to be much more versatile than I thought; besides removing light pollution and vignetting, it has also proven to be very effective in bringing out hidden detail and enhancing local contrast, specifically in DSOs.
Over the past few months, I've been finetuning StarWipe using the IOTW images, most of which show improvement in clarity and contrast, even this week's amazing Leo Triplet extravaganza! (but I don't republish without the creator's approval...).
If you're not afraid of command-line utilities, give it a whirl at www.siliconfields.net. It's actually not too complex and you'll also find a short manual there.
If you're stuck or you got questions, feedback, got a development job for me, or would like to send me a cake , just drop me a mail via my website or IIS (or post something in this thread). Before and after images are also very welcome (or post them here).
Hope you guys find this little tool as useful as I find it.
Best regards,
Ivo Jager
Edit: attached some sample results, images courtesy of Marc Aragnou and Charles Kuehne. For better quality samples, visit my site and/or read the PDF manual. Only Starwipe was used on these samples, no other processing was done.
Update: 0.7 is now out with 16-bit/channel TIFF support + some other goodies (see manual for changelog).
Hi Ivo,
I had a few spare hours today and have had a chance to play around with Starwipe. I'm a novice in this field, but I was quite impressed with the results I achieved in a few minutes. See below!
I am a dedicated non command-line type, so the first thing I did was write up a couple of simple one-line batch files in Notepad to automate the typing process a little.
I feel there is considerable potential in your program and hope you can be supported with feedback and suggestions as you progress.
For any others out there who may be interested in trying Ovi's little work of art, I've attached a couple of results, plus my batch files, which I had to rename as .txt files to satisfy IIS uploader. Rename them with .bat after saving.
As Starwipe is a command-line job, it only recognises 8-letter filenames. I made a directory d:\Starwipe, and put it and the batch files in there. Make a couple of shortcuts to the two batch files (def 1 and def 2) so you can run them straight from the desktop.
Drag, copy or save your .BMP image, (I saved the BMP from my screen FIT file in Neb), into D:\starwipe and name it image.bmp. Filesize is about 40MB for an 82MB drizzled Neb file). Then just click on the appropriate shortcut for which type of processing you want (channel or pixel), and away it goes, and will autosave the processed .BMP image in the directory. (Read the manual). You then get the thrills of loading it into Neb or whatever to continue processing. Painless.
These are only very basic learner instructions. Take a peek at the .bat files, and read Ovi's manual and then do some processing tweaking as you wish. The two images I did, I used Def1.bat. I also tried a really bad snowy third image, using pixel (def 2), but since I was only guessing (all of 10 minutes into the program!) results were not super improved. Like any thing, takes time to experiment. But so easy to do! Just change the values in the .bat files!
BTW making the .BMP images in Nebulosity was painless, as simple as saving the present screen image. I really like Neb!
Now, if some kind soul will just elegantize Starwipe wif a GUI, it would be super!
Hi Ivo,
I had a few spare hours today and have had a chance to play around with Starwipe. I'm a novice in this field, but I was quite impressed with the results I achieved in a few minutes. See below!
I am a dedicated non command-line type, so the first thing I did was write up a couple of simple one-line batch files in Notepad to automate the typing process a little.
I feel there is considerable potential in your program and hope you can be supported with feedback and suggestions as you progress.
For any others out there who may be interested in trying Ovi's little work of art, I've attached a couple of results, plus my batch files, which I had to rename as .txt files to satisfy IIS uploader. Rename them with .bat after saving.
As Starwipe is a command-line job, it only recognises 8-letter filenames. I made a directory d:\Starwipe, and put it and the batch files in there. Make a couple of shortcuts to the two batch files (def 1 and def 2) so you can run them straight from the desktop.
Drag, copy or save your .BMP image, (I saved the BMP from my screen FIT file in Neb), into D:\starwipe and name it image.bmp. Filesize is about 40MB for an 82MB drizzled Neb file). Then just click on the appropriate shortcut for which type of processing you want (channel or pixel), and away it goes, and will autosave the processed .BMP image in the directory. (Read the manual). You then get the thrills of loading it into Neb or whatever to continue processing. Painless.
These are only very basic learner instructions. Take a peek at the .bat files, and read Ovi's manual and then do some processing tweaking as you wish. The two images I did, I used Def1.bat. I also tried a really bad snowy third image, using pixel (def 2), but since I was only guessing (all of 10 minutes into the program!) results were not super improved. Like any thing, takes time to experiment. But so easy to do! Just change the values in the .bat files!
BTW making the .BMP images in Nebulosity was painless, as simple as saving the present screen image. I really like Neb!
Now, if some kind soul will just elegantize Starwipe wif a GUI, it would be super!
Cheers,
Great read & nice to see it's got a place in your toolchain!
StarWipe hates artifical/non-natural data such as dead pixels (it's OK with hot pixels), borders, seams, or excessive noise. If you'd crop your M83 image slightly to get rid of the anomalous data (probably due to stacking?) in the bottom right corner, StarWipe will do a much better job!
Looking at your batchfiles, you're missing out on 'local' mode (for starters try it with '--scale=10' '--window=2' or thereabouts). Local mode can really help poke through dusty or nebulous regions.
If you have an exceedingly noisy image and want to use StarWipe on it, you can do the following;
Take the image and blur it until you can't see any noise anymore, then feed it to StarWipe, but use the '--maponly' option.
This will output the light pollution map instead of the corrected image to the BMP.
Then feed the original (unblurred) noisy image to StarWipe, but use the '--inmap' parameter to load the light pollution map you just extracted from the blurred image. And presto!
EDIT: To use file names longer than 8 characters, simply put your filename between double quotes. Ex;
Ahah! Sounds like some good easy batchfile changes OK on the non-natural stuff! Yep, haven't had time to try 'local' mode yet.
BTW, there are a few small confusions in your manual, (some of the commands are shown as "-" instead of the double "--" and a couple of the commands (inmap, etc) were not too clear to me. Since no doubt the manual is a work in progress anyway, just thought I'd drop these bits by for your review.
BTW, there are a few small confusions in your manual, (some of the commands are shown as "-" instead of the double "--" and a couple of the commands (inmap, etc) were not too clear to me. Since no doubt the manual is a work in progress anyway, just thought I'd drop these bits by for your review.
Just cropped out the bottom stacking artifacts in yesterday's M83 pic and saved as BMP, then re-Starwiped using same def1.bat settings as yesterday. No other processing. Works really well! I'll try your other tips during the week.
Have you uploaded the changed manual pdf yet? The present downloadable is still dated 19 May and has the minor errors. Nag Nag
BTW, My apologies on consistently misspelling your name above. I'm a typing dyslectic.
Just cropped out the bottom stacking artifacts in yesterday's M83 pic and saved as BMP, then re-Starwiped using same def1.bat settings as yesterday. No other processing. Works really well! I'll try your other tips during the week.
Have you uploaded the changed manual pdf yet? The present downloadable is still dated 19 May and has the minor errors. Nag Nag
BTW, My apologies on consistently misspelling your name above. I'm a typing dyslectic.
Cheers,
Doh! Uploaded it, but mistyped the name, so it didn't overwrite the old one - seems like you're not the only one with typing troubles... Try it now (you may have to clear your browser cache if you still get the old verison).
I had a chuckle though, my little sister used to call me Ovi all the time!
I'm not having any luck with SW.7b and .tif files from Nebulosity using my modified (image.tif) batch file. The command box just flicks on then off. Exporting the same fits file from neb in .bmp works fine with my .bmp batch file. I've removed the ==excolour function from both batch files as well.
Hmmm.... Are the TIFF files from Nebulosity uncompressed? StarWipe only supports uncompressed files at present.
EDIT: I just installed Nebulosity 2.3 and exported a TIF file. I selected the "Save 16-bit/color TIFF File" option and fed the file to StarWipe, which had no problems reading it.
If a particular file doesn't work for you and you don't mind sending it to me, then please do, so I can see what's going on!
it appears the reason is if you export an un-debayered file to 16bit/color TIFF (.tif) from a neb bayered .fit, SW doesn't like the TIF. If you export the un-debayered fit as a .BMP, SW has no problem and processes it and saves as a B&W .tiff.
If you "de-mosaic" a .fit in Neb then export that new .fit as a 16bit/color TIFF, all goes well and you finish up with a colour TIFF from SW.
Does that all make sense? I actually don't think it's too unreasonable that SW doesn't like a bayered TIFF, as long as there is a warning in the manual.
A small user-input: It appears that there is now a longer pause (~45 seconds) in SW before it prints the first "calculating ..." comment. This tends to make new users think it might have locked up or such. Is it possible to move the comment timing to immediately follow the option list print, so you know the machine is doing something?
it appears the reason is if you export an un-debayered file to 16bit/color TIFF (.tif) from a neb bayered .fit, SW doesn't like the TIF. If you export the un-debayered fit as a .BMP, SW has no problem and processes it and saves as a B&W .tiff.
If you "de-mosaic" a .fit in Neb then export that new .fit as a 16bit/color TIFF, all goes well and you finish up with a colour TIFF from SW.
Does that all make sense? I actually don't think it's too unreasonable that SW doesn't like a bayered TIFF, as long as there is a warning in the manual.p
Ok, I think I understand. I'll make a mention in the manual, but really, as far as I can tell, I can't find any such thing as a 'bayered TIFF' in the official TIFF specs. To StarWipe, it just looks like a big grayscale image, which it doesn't support (it only supports 48-bit RGB 16-bit-per channel TIFFs).
Quote:
A small user-input: It appears that there is now a longer pause (~45 seconds) in SW before it prints the first "calculating ..." comment. This tends to make new users think it might have locked up or such. Is it possible to move the comment timing to immediately follow the option list print, so you know the machine is doing something?
Cheers,
Good suggestion. I didn't realize the pause would be that long for some people. The pause is longer because I bumped up the algorithm quality settings, but, yeah, it's a bit slower...
StarWipe 0.7b released; software lightpollution filter and contrast enhancer
, just drop me a mail via my website or IIS (or post something in this thread). Before and after images are also very welcome (or post them here).
