PIPP Output Directory Problem

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I've managed this before but can't get PIPP to cooperate. All I'm trying to do is convert a set of lunar images and get PIPP to put them in the same directory. In batch mode it insists on putting each image in a new one and in join mode it only outputs a single image. I've unticked "create sub directory" but that doesn't help. Does anyone have any suggestions please?

[Steve Ward]

Put all your subs in their own folder to start , then PIPP will just create a new folder in that one ... 

Leastways it does for me ... 

[cgarry]

PIPP will always create a directory when generating image files, this directory will take the name of the first image to be processed and the images in the directory will just have numbers as names.  This cannot be disabled.

The "Create Subdirectory" option creates another directory of the form pipp_date_time which should be unique for each time PIPP runs.

So for what you want to do you should run in 'Join Mode' and all the generated images should be put into the same directory.  If you are only getting one image out then something is going wrong.

Cheers,

Chris

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I've checked my options against an online guide and they all look OK. Looking at it again, it may be failing when re-ordering the files by quality after outputting the first one - it says processing finished after 1 of 119 frames. Perhaps it doesn't like something in my options or it could be a memory issue, these are larger files than I've used before. I'll dig into it a bit more later.

[cgarry]

If PIPP is discarding frames it should tell you why in the output box.  I think it normally says something like 'X frames discarded because object not completely in frame' or whatever.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Looking at the log I'm getting this:

Summary:

PIPP version: v2.3.8

  Runtime: 303 seconds

  Total input frames: 119

  Frames discarded with no planet detected: 118

  Frames discarded by quality: 0

  Total output frames: 1:

  Quality Algorithm: Unknown

  Output Frame Type: Monochrome

  Output Frame Format: TIF

  Output Directory: E:/My Files/My Pictures/2014_10_03/Moon/pipp_20141004_142009/

Possibly it doesn't like it because I was shooting from a wobbly tripod. I'll play with some different settings and see if I can get it to work.

[Steve Ward]

As it says 'no planet detected' ... did you tick the "Lunar/Solar Full Disc" box to start with or was is set on Planetary by default ... ?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Yes, I ticked full disc thanks. The test button correctly picks up and displays the Moon but no joy with the join. At least I know I've selected the right mode now.

Thinking about it I've had a similar problem before but I got it to work by changing one of the parameters, just wish I could remember which one... Pipp makes using Registax so much easier, the pre-alignment speeds up the stacking many times and I seem to get fewer hangs/crashes.

[cgarry]

Could you post a jpeg version of one of your files so that we can get idea of what you are working with.

Sometimes PIPP's automatic object detection threshold can get it wrong and result in most of the frames being thrown away.  In this situation you can manually set the object detect threshold.  To do this:

After adding the source files and setting up PIPP's options as usual, click on the:

Processing Options -> Object Detection Threshold -> Test Detect Threshold button.

This will calculate the automatic object detection threshold and show the frame with the pixels that have been detected as part of the object in red and other pixels in monochrome.  Here you want to make sure the moon is being correctly detected and the background is not.

Then you can uncheck the 'Processing Options -> Object Detection Threshold -> Auto Object Detection Threshold' option and modify the 'Object Detection Threshold' to a more suitable value.  The 'Test Detect Threshold' button can be used again to check the new threshold value.

Cheers,

Chris

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks, I'll try changing that.

Here's one of my source frames:

And here it is cropped (jpg has made a mess of the halo, the RAW is fine):

Taken with my 250mm zoom lens on a Canon 700D.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Looks like it was a memory problem. It works OK when selecting 15 frames rather than the full 115 or so.

[cgarry]

That is strange, PIPP processes the frames one at a time so should not need any more memory to process more frames.  Thinking about it PIPP does now use RAM buffers to speed up quality processing.  You could try turning off RAM buffer usage here:

Options Menu -> Use RAM Buffers For Quality Sorting = Unchecked.

Cheers,

Chris

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I will try that next time thanks - in the window I can see it was allocating something like 80 RAM buffers. The files are from an 18MP sensor so they would be quite big. Are you involved in the development of PIPP by nay chance?

I got there in the end by processing them 30 at a time, copying the output files to a new directory and running it again on the smaller processed files. Here's the final result:

(Unfortunately compression on Flickr makes a right mess of the background, the .jpg is solid black on my PC.)

[cgarry]

Nice result in the end, good detail.

I will try that next time thanks - in the window I can see it was allocating something like 80 RAM buffers. The files are from an 18MP sensor so they would be quite big. Are you involved in the development of PIPP by nay chance?

Yes I am PIPP's developer, hence why I tend to have more interest when it is misbehaving than when it just works!

Cheers,

Chris

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks for the help and for an excellent bit of software. Would you like me to send a bug report for this? Unless I've missed something it fails silently when selecting too many large files.

There is one unfortunate thing about PIPP but it's Google's fault. Whenever search for it auto-complete fills in Pippa Middleton. 

Quite pleased with the final result, it looks like the higher resolution sensor on my new camera is a useful upgrade for lunar imaging. I may have over-sharpened a touch and getting the limb right is tricky, I tried blending in a less sharpened version of the image for the edge.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Your tip of turning off the ram buffers does the trick thanks, I can process my subs in one hit now without any problems.

[cgarry]

Thanks for reporting back with that, very useful to know that turning off the buffers can fix these issues when they show up.

Cheers,

Chris