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RegiStax 5.1: New and changed features list 

Although development of RegiStax 5.1 originally started due to a request to add functionality to process RAW y800 AVIs we have been working on a full revision of many aspects of the software. The update is therefore not a real minor update. We explain functionality of several of the new/changed features in these pages. On this page you can see a (nearly) complete list of all the changes compared to the original V5 release in march 2009.

General improvement in functionality
-Debayering of Y800 AVI's larger than 2Gb (added in 5.1.0.2)
-useage of PNG as a flatfield/darkframe was not always working as expected. 
-useage of files single colour files. If you load files with names ending in _R,_G,_B,_L (red,green,blue,luminosity, for instance jupiter_G.bmp) the program now uses these files without crashing.

Changes at the specific RegiStax Stages

ALIGN STAGE
-Lefttab Options section Additional
-Wait while loading a single image, this allows the user to treat a single image without directly going to the Stacking Stage
-Play Sounds, this will use default windows sounds to signal that Alignment/Optimizing/Stacking is finished or when a special RegiStax message pops up.
-Swap red and Blue,  added for the special occasions where swapping the channels is necessary (IR imaging)
-Use CameraWhiteBalance, when processing RAW frames from DSLR camera's this option will make the colour-balance identical to the original recording.

changed:
Setting the "Full Image" option now will be remembered during processing. After alignment/optimizing/stacking (when this option will be set OFF) on the waveletpage this option will be active again if activated at the Align Stage.

We have changed the PREFILTER setup, you can read more about that on this webpage


OPTIMIZE STAGE

On the optimize stage we also have added the PREFILTER  system allowing users to only use PREFILTER after initial alignment or change parameters of the PREFILTER after for instance "CREATE REFERENCE" or "REALIGN with PROCESSED".

Two new optimizer-methods have been added, they are fundamentally different from the original Squared/Absolute methods. Both of these methods compare the current alignmentarea to the reference in a way that is less sensistive to for instances changes in light-intensity. During testing we found MutualInfo (Mutual Information if you want to search the internet for the technique) is probably the best of the 4 available methods.

The graphs during optimisationare now always expanded maximally. This means that the highest/lowest value recorded will correspond to the maximum-minimum of the graphscale. You will during optimisation see the graphs sometimes change in scale. The large advantage of this is that differences will be shown in maximum detail, especially in the Stacking stage (where this information is also used) this is helpfull. Additionally the graphs also show the minimum-maximum values in the graphcaption.

The drizzle-function has been changed and now works as planned, to achieve this we have locked the magnification factor of Drizzle to 2. You can read more on this webpage

When using Create-Reference in RegiStax V5 the program would not remember the previously used setting if this was larger than 100 frames. That has been changed in V5.1

STACKING STAGE
-Option under section Sigmastacking:
added: stack above average intensity. This can be used to show improve average image-intensity for image-sequences with temporary bright/dark features (passing meteors).

Saving Registered
This section has been changed a great deal. We have added the option to saving only the Region Of Interest if the user has specified this.  This is handy to create for instance a new AVI (or set of frames) with only the topic of interest (for instance a planet).
Next to this you can now also save the registered frames as PNG files. So currently you can save the registered frames as an AVI (8bit), BMP files (8bit) and PNG (16bit). Saving to PNG works rather different from saving to AVI or BMP and will be slower. Needless to say that saving to PNG is only usefull if the input format is also >8bits ! When saving a registered set of frames you can also sort the frames according to quality, for the single frame formats (BMP/PNG) the original filenames will be used with a counter added to allow sorting them.
During testing some of us found it interesting to use the PREFILTER  also when saving an AVI for instance just to show certain aspects of the frames. Especially Pre-gradient has interesting proportions to study the way turbulence manifests itself on frames. 

Framelist
The framelist now has a section on top where you can read for the alignpoints how large the shifts (X and Y) are.

Drizzling
The new drizzling function allows users to activate it on the Stacking stage, read more about it at this webpage

Normalisation of Frame intensity
This function is now by default on, during testing we found out that many of the problems users had with seams can be cleared using normalisation of the frame-intensity. This function makes sure that frames (and sections of a frame) are equal in average intensity. This is a rather important change and more can be seen at this webpage

Stackgraphs
Thusfar the StackGraph(s) would shows the image-differences on a scale from 0 to the maximum recorded difference. This is logical if the least recorded difference is indeed 0, but if the user was using a created referenceframe the most alike looking frame was often not 0. When you want to use the stackgraphs it sometimes was difficult to select the precise amount of frames. Next to this the new optimizer-methods work so different that we now have changed the way the stackgraphs are shown. They will show only the minimum to maximum values and not necessarily start at 0. That gives the users maximum control to remove frames from the stack.

WAVELET STAGE

When "realigning with processed" you can now also do this if you have been using resampling or drizzling.
A new technique is used to do the "auto balancing" for RGB images, this white balance technique is explained in more detail at this webpage
When you are using drizzling or resampling the "show alignpoints" is now showing correct size/position of the alignpoints.
When using larger gaussian filters it was possible to get "edges" appearing in the image, we have now expanded the gaussian section even further to prevent this from happening.