StarTools parameterization and project (session) save
Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:40 pm
I'm just spewing my mind here... Please don't take this as a complaint. I love this tool!
I was talking with a friend about StarTools. We come from the engineering world. Where stuff is done in a linear fashion (step-by-step)... I know StarTools is designed to be "non-linear" in that you can do any amount of steps and then re-do them again. However, I think StarTools is missing a lot by not keeping a track of the steps performed. I mean, a track the user can see. For example, take the image below:
Thats ANSYS Workbench, which is a huge improvement from ANSYS Classic since it introduced model parameterization (basically you can edit modify or remove anything at any moment). Forget it is a Finite Element Analysis tool and think about the tree view on the left. It would be not only awesome, but game changing, to have something like that in StarTools.
Imagine I open my image, do a crop, develop, wipe... I would get a list of those in that tree:
Crop
Develop
Wipe
Contrast
HDR
...
And then when you click on the items it would open the parameters used. It could allow for duplicate items (develop as is) or keep just one (develop from scratch)...
Crop
Develop
Wipe
Contrast
HDR
Develop (as is)
...
I know StarTools is handling a huge amount of data and keeping track of all of this would be crazy. But if at least we had an editable list of steps done, it would so much improve the processing. I know StarTools is designed to be non-linear, but being able to see the steps you have taken and to modify them and see the effects seems obvious from my point of view. It allows you to develop your workflow (even though its not needed from a software perspective, I still need a list of things to do, and things I've done...
Also, I think we need a way to store our images in progress as a project. I believe that simply dumping everything to a file would be a killer but maybe saving the steps performed along with the original image to a binary file would be really nice. StarTools could then open the image (in the binary file), and re-do all the steps done (kind of a script)... It would allow you to stop a project any time and continue later. Or even sending a project to another person to take a look... Or you can even use the current log file, but add a way to read this log file on the image. It would take a while to run the log but it opens a lot of possibilities (including scripting, as a side effect).
I was talking with a friend about StarTools. We come from the engineering world. Where stuff is done in a linear fashion (step-by-step)... I know StarTools is designed to be "non-linear" in that you can do any amount of steps and then re-do them again. However, I think StarTools is missing a lot by not keeping a track of the steps performed. I mean, a track the user can see. For example, take the image below:
Thats ANSYS Workbench, which is a huge improvement from ANSYS Classic since it introduced model parameterization (basically you can edit modify or remove anything at any moment). Forget it is a Finite Element Analysis tool and think about the tree view on the left. It would be not only awesome, but game changing, to have something like that in StarTools.
Imagine I open my image, do a crop, develop, wipe... I would get a list of those in that tree:
Crop
Develop
Wipe
Contrast
HDR
...
And then when you click on the items it would open the parameters used. It could allow for duplicate items (develop as is) or keep just one (develop from scratch)...
Crop
Develop
Wipe
Contrast
HDR
Develop (as is)
...
I know StarTools is handling a huge amount of data and keeping track of all of this would be crazy. But if at least we had an editable list of steps done, it would so much improve the processing. I know StarTools is designed to be non-linear, but being able to see the steps you have taken and to modify them and see the effects seems obvious from my point of view. It allows you to develop your workflow (even though its not needed from a software perspective, I still need a list of things to do, and things I've done...
Also, I think we need a way to store our images in progress as a project. I believe that simply dumping everything to a file would be a killer but maybe saving the steps performed along with the original image to a binary file would be really nice. StarTools could then open the image (in the binary file), and re-do all the steps done (kind of a script)... It would allow you to stop a project any time and continue later. Or even sending a project to another person to take a look... Or you can even use the current log file, but add a way to read this log file on the image. It would take a while to run the log but it opens a lot of possibilities (including scripting, as a side effect).