PIPP AS!2 Comparison

[WayBig]

ooooooh!!!!

yes indeed - I used castrator first and then PIPP!!!

Would you be so kind to let me have the current development version??

Heh, heh, I've fallen for that in the past and then wondered why my image has lines all over it...caused by frames with only part of the planet on it.

At the moment I'm using pipp and then as!2. Pipp is especially useful in saving disc space. I output the required number of frames then delete the avi

[Kokatha man]

Here's another one PIPP>AS!2(MPA)>R6

Note:rolleyes: The Blue Haze is apparently real Although the exact mechanism is not known

As some may know I embarrassed myself over the weekend by criticizing

Darryls fantastic shots for what I took to be a bit too much Blue

Until he pointed out to me the error of my ways :o Via "Google"ing "Martian Blue Haze" I think he's almost forgiven me

.....just trying to get up to date on SGL after the changeover (whenever that was?) and I lost my password etc.....can't even put an emoticon in here 'cos you've used all the allowable in my quote of you Rob (memo: expect Rob to beg forgiveness for this also! )

tbh I'm at a bit of a loss to make much of any of this PIPP stuff bro.....I suppose I should beg your own forgiveness for the info/downloads stuff you've sent me on the matter - I haven't really looked at it here.....maybe a summary of what you reckon it assists with if it's not too much.....

fmm AS!2 @ 1.5x Drizzle has crunched the opposition.....I haven't written a command text for Ninox nor resorted to CofG in Reggie to eliminate "joins" in ages - just about forgotten all of it ....!

[cgarry]

I agree that AS!2 has been a complete game changer, I too have almost forgotten how many hoops sometimes needed to be jumped through to get Reg6 to correctly stack a capture. To be honest I have no real desire to act as a salesman for PIPP, it is basically a tool to use if you find it useful. If anybody's processing flow works well enough without PIPP then I would never suggest trying to shoehorn it in.

Having said I do not want to act as a salesman, I guess I am about to do exactly that by listing some of the features...

* Reject frames where the planet is missing from the frame or is only partially in the frame.

* Centre the planet in each frame.

* Crop frames around the planet.

These tasks could be done by VirtualDub and Castrator, but PIPP does this in a single run.

* Equalise all histograms prior to stacking

Not definitely required,but I find this simplifies getting consistent colours from captures from different sessions.

* Quality sorting

So the main advantages as I see it:

* Reduce the size of captured data I archive by only archiving after cropping and rejecting the low quality frames.

* Produce slight (very subtle) improvements in the final stacked image for some captures.

Anyway, In an effort to stay on the topic of this thread, here are a couple of stacked images to compare:

Test image 1:

Test image 2:

Both are 1000 frames stacked from a 2000 frame capture using AS!2 with the same wavelets applied with Reg6. The only difference between them is PIPP was used to select the frames for one of them and AS!2 used to select the frames from the other.

Cheers,

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

I assume the PIPP image is no.1 with the superior moon Chris.

I found PIPP was a great asset when processing Jupiter with Moons though that was before using as!2 so I'm now re-processing with as!2 and 1.5x drizzle to see how they compare.

[cgarry]

I assume the PIPP image is no.1 with the superior moon Chris.

I found PIPP was a great asset when processing Jupiter with Moons though that was before using as!2 so I'm now re-processing with as!2 and 1.5x drizzle to see how they compare.

Actually no. 2 is is PIPP image, the moon does seem to have lost out! I don't think it is easy to see the detail difference on the planet itself with the images one above the other as they are presented here. The best way to see the difference is to flip between them, then the extra detail does becomes obvious. Interestingly, in this case Reg 6 produces a much better moon than AS!2 does when stacking the same PIPP generated AVI.

[cgarry]

Reduced back to the original size. Does this make them easier to compare?

To my eyes the PIPP version has slightly more detail/freckles in the dark northern cap area, though I might be imagining things...

Cheers,

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

Can't see much difference in the Planet detail to be honest Chris. Seems odd that PIPP would produce a misshaped moon. I remember having that problem when using registax without PIPP but once "PIPPED" they were nice and round.

[cgarry]

Yes, the misshaped moon is a bit unexpected. I suppose it does give me something to figure out while waiting for a clear night.

Cheers,

Chris

[Kokatha man]

I agree that AS!2 has been a complete game changer, I too have almost forgotten how many hoops sometimes needed to be jumped through to get Reg6 to correctly stack a capture. To be honest I have no real desire to act as a salesman for PIPP, it is basically a tool to use if you find it useful. If anybody's processing flow works well enough without PIPP then I would never suggest trying to shoehorn it in.

Having said I do not want to act as a salesman, I guess I am about to do exactly that by listing some of the features...

* Reject frames where the planet is missing from the frame or is only partially in the frame.

* Centre the planet in each frame.

* Crop frames around the planet.

These tasks could be done by VirtualDub and Castrator, but PIPP does this in a single run.

* Equalise all histograms prior to stacking

Not definitely required,but I find this simplifies getting consistent colours from captures from different sessions.

* Quality sorting

So the main advantages as I see it:

* Reduce the size of captured data I archive by only archiving after cropping and rejecting the low quality frames.

* Produce slight (very subtle) improvements in the final stacked image for some captures.

Cheers,

Chris

Hmmmm.....I now recollect having a bit of a conversation with Rob about some of this - I can appreciate folks particulars preferences although for myself I like to retain the "raw" data as captured however that may be taken.....

Castrator is actually part of the function of AS!2 re cropping and centring, and of course the quality estimation is done therein - although not, of course, any ability to retain this graded stack...but I have no real wish to keep said as setting up different MAPs arrangements will create slightly differing outcomes which I find worthwhile experimenting with.....but I would like AS!2 to be able to store any/a particular MAPs arrangement, something it doesn't allow - or at least I haven't worked out!!!

AS!2 seems to take care of bad frames imo.....well, the couple of times I've had a planet drift offscreen it didn't faze it at all, it seemed like it took care of it by rejecting those frames.

As you say, equalising histos does make colour consistency easier but I won't go into any raves about that here - I've talked at length about that plenty of times..!

I'd have to agree that your PIPP Vs AS!2 image comparison (the 2 smaller jobs) does give the points to the PIPP one imo.....but as I've said above, MAPs arrangements in AS!2 make a noticeable difference, actually quite profound between an "ok" and a "good" arrangement so that really needs to be factored into any meaningfull comparisons also.....it requires quite a bit of experimentation to get a good setup imho - which is why I'd like to retain these setups for any future images captured at identical scales.

Regards, Darryl.

[Kokatha man]

.....not wishing to hijack this thread's topic, but just to demonstrate (maybe!!! ) the difference that fine changes in processing can make.....and also to hopefully show how AS!2 can yield quite noticeably different results here's an image (red channel Jupiter) from 26th December last year - the left image using 30 MAPs and the right 52...

To me there are subtle improvements in the right hand image, perhaps best seein in the GRS but elsewhere also.....I'm not really making any specific point here, but perhaps this is what I'm fumbling around to state: finite differences in how we handle any data and perhaps even the order we process can make slight differences that may give the impression that we're better off doing "such & such" etc rather than "so & so" - to my mind I can honestly say I've spent countless hours over the last few years playing around with very subtle differences in outcomes that are (generally) inconsequential in comparison to silly things such as the screen you use, the height it is adjusted to and the ambient lighting etc.....and for me I've done enough "rod-producing for my own back" and think that straight AS!2 (with some slight improvements!) is better than sliced bread - although I guess none of us will ever stop trying to eke a bit more out of our images anyway we can....!

[cgarry]

HI Darryl,

I do think it is too easy to become a bit obsessed with playing around with processing techniques looking for the ever so slight improvements. For me I put this down to a hangover from the Registax days (when one could improve the results) and far too many cloudy nights leaving us no new data to play with. That said, I think it is time I played around with AS!2's MAPs which I have not done so far...

Cheers,

Chris

[Space Cowboy]

In my opinion PIPP is a very useful asset for giving one's best avis a final "polish". As Darryl says as!2 is indeed the bees knees but I'm sure when dealing with avi's with variable seeing there has to be an advantage with weeding out the chaff before using as!2.

I use Castrator on a regular basis but it can't handle frames where the planet has drifted off the chip which in the past needed editing out with vdub so this is another advantage of PIPP.

Chris has done a great job with his latest user friendly version which keeps the processing schedule nice and simple.