StarTools 1.6 Final, 1.7 Alpha w/GPU acceleration

[admin]

Hi all,

1.6 is now the new stable version of StarTools. The list of innovations, new functionality, improvements, optimizations and enhancements is very, very long (see CHANGELOG file). 1.6 also includes improved, integrated documentation and support.

We're also very excited to announce and release the first 1.7 alpha, making StarTools the first fully GPU accelerated AP-specific post-processing application available. Watching a high-iteration Decon finish in almost real-time is something to behold.

Lastly, we cannot thank enough our users, and the many generous alpha/beta testers, translators, dataset providers, and signal processing enthusiast who continue to actively contribute to StarTools development and innovation.

Without you, StarTools, nearly 10 years in, would not be where it is now; at the cutting-edge of astronomical image signal processing and fidelity!

Clear skies and a heartfelt thank you to you all!

Ivo

[happy-kat]

That's pretty exciting, off to download both updates, thank you for the continued growth and innovation of StarTools

[admin]

That's pretty exciting, off to download both updates, thank you for the continued growth and innovation of StarTools

Thank you happy-kat - couldn't do what I do without your support!

[ghswen]

Hi all,

1.6 is now the new stable version of StarTools. The list of innovations, new functionality, improvements, optimizations and enhancements is very, very long (see CHANGELOG file). 1.6 also includes improved, integrated documentation and support.

We're also very excited to announce and release the first 1.7 alpha, making StarTools the first fully GPU accelerated AP-specific post-processing application available. Watching a high-iteration Decon finish in almost real-time is something to behold.

Lastly, we cannot thank enough our users, and the many generous alpha/beta testers, translators, dataset providers, and signal processing enthusiast who continue to actively contribute to StarTools development and innovation.

Without you, StarTools, nearly 10 years in, would not be where it is now; at the cutting-edge of astronomical image signal processing and fidelity!

Clear skies and a heartfelt thank you to you all!

Ivo

Congratulations Ivo on the new upgraded versions! We appreciate your continued hard work with improvements to make StarTools the best!!!

[elpajare]

Thanks for the work, Startools is an essential tool for me.

[cytan299]

Hi Ivo,
I just tried the Mac version of Startools 1.7 alpha and unfortunately, it crashes immediately after I clicked on Autodev. Here's the part of the log file:

*******************
-----------------------------------------------------------
StarTools 1.7.402alpha
Sat Jul 11 15:40:19 2020
-----------------------------------------------------------
File loaded [/Volumes/AstroPhotos/astro/04Jul2020/stack/cropped_ngc7023.fit].
Image size is 3337 x 2501
---
Type of Data: Linear and was Bayered, but not whitebalanced
File loaded [/Volumes/AstroPhotos/astro/04Jul2020/stack/cropped_ngc7023.fit].
Image size is 3328 x 2461
---
Type of Data: Linear and was Bayered, but not whitebalanced

-----------------------------------------------------------
StarTools 1.7.402alpha
Sat Jul 11 15:45:08 2020
-----------------------------------------------------------
File loaded [/Volumes/AstroPhotos/astro/04Jul2020/stack/cropped_ngc7023.fit].
Image size is 3328 x 2461
---
Type of Data: Linear and was Bayered, but not whitebalanced
********************

I'm running on MacBook Pro 16 and Catalina 10.15.5.

cytan

[admin]

I just tried the Mac version of Startools 1.7 alpha and unfortunately, it crashes immediately after I clicked on Autodev

Dang.

macOS again, AMD drivers again

Thank you for your report. This is rather disheartening after spending so much time trying to troubleshoot different macOS configs and working around issues in their drivers. AMD has been particularly troublesome. So far, I have had reports of RX500-class and R9 300-class working correctly now. The MBP 16, if I'm not mistaken, comes with a newer RX5000-class GPU, correct?

A couple of questions for you to help troubleshoot this;

• Is it a crash or clean exit?
• If crash, would you be able to send me the crash report? This would be extremely useful.
• Can you see any messages from StarTools in your macOS Console?
• What does it say in the StarTools' about dialog, e.g. something like this;

Selection_161.png (8.24 KiB) Viewed 20254 times

EDIT: I'm reading about a lot of issues (for example here, but also elsewhere) about crashes with the MBP 16/RX5000-class configuration in other GPU-dependent applications as well (e.g. Photoshop). Apparently one possible workarounds is to turn off/untick automatic graphics switching". Does this help at all?


Thank you!

[hixx]

Hi,
so again another graphic card, new issues...., I just downloaded 1.7.402 from homepage and retried....
I can confirm it works for my configuration now (AMD R9 M390) - no crash any more .
good luck fixing this!
jochen

[cytan299]

Hi Ivo,
Here's more info from my MacBook Pro 16. Here's the config from "About this Mac ...":

about1.png (60.01 KiB) Viewed 20113 times

Here's the info from StarTools about (it doesn't see the AMD):

about.png (69.34 KiB) Viewed 20113 times

Turning off/untick automatic graphics switching gives the same results. And no change to what Startools sees, i.e. it still only sees the INTEL video adapter.

Hitting the AutoDev button crashes StarTools. No extra info in StarTools.log (same as what I showed above). I'm attaching the console log. (saved in startools_crash.zip)


Hopefully, this helps with the debugging.

cytan

[Topographic]

Hi Ivo

Just trying out 1.7

Tried deconvolution and got some odd ring effects with some stars. See attachments, tried again and got an odd smaller ring artifact (which I have had with 1.6).

Is moffat the default PSF?

Error diffusion = when you pree help you get Regularization that mentions a default of '1'. Default seems to be 'Off'

Could all be me of course

David