PGMania. Astrophotography image and video processor.
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Links
Help and documentation. A must read! https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2610
PGMania Telegram channel https://t.me/pgmania
Author's astrophoto taken in PGMania https://deepskyhosting.com/pv
YouTube channel(tutorial movies) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8CVhx3nyuA&list=PLMfY5OydJ9Xp3HM3vQi8n-e3INoL_oOTK
If you use this program and find it useful, please write a review about it. We will be very grateful to you.
You can do this at any site that suits you best. Thank you!
And a bit more. If you ready to learn and work with it, and also published your own results of deep sky image processing in PGMania on public platforms with a link to the program and short review, we will provide you with an annual license completely free of charge.
Details and conditions can be discussed by email pgmania@yandex.ru or in Telegram https://t.me/EugeneTrifonov
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About this software
The process of obtaining astrophotographs is well studied and has widespread application.
The technologies have been worked out well enough and allow you to get sustainable results.
As in any direction of technological progress, technology in astrophotography also does not stand still.
It's not just telescopes that allow hobbyists to increase their apertures and penetrate deeper space.
Not just computers that offer ever greater performance, and not just astro cameras that allow more details to be pulled out of total darkness.
The point is in the approaches and technologies for processing the obtained images.
Let's talk about one of these technologies.
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Processing astrophotography in PGMania
PGMania - all in one astrophotography package for processing deep sky images.
It provides wide and unique functionality, a powerful and flexible tool with a clear and convenient interface for astrophotography image processing.
The program performs all processing cycles, including alignment, calibration, stacking, post-processing images, does many secondary operations and much more.
PGMania started in 2015 with the invention of an alternative technology for calibrating deep space images.
When using PGMania, we get a clean signal at the output, without hot pixels and noise.
With this technology, images are cleared of random noise.
At the same time, there is no need for additional technical images.
Forget about it and sleep peacefully. The program itself will do everything in the best possible way only from what your telescope and camera saw in the sky.
All you need to calibrate a pair of lights is a pair of lights. Computer image processing in the style of - we paint this pixel, smear another, and blur this one is not done.
Everything happens thanks to mathematics and the laws of physics, as in nature.
For this reason, PGMania is safe for the environment - it does not pollute your photos with things that were never there.
A processor with a magnifying glass will not crawl over your pictures, blurring hot pixels, hiding satellites and cosmic rays.
They will dissolve on their own, like bubbles in water.
When the water calms down and the background becomes a mirror, you will see the essence.
Here's how it works in PGMania:
- Darks and Flats are used only at the pre-cleaning stage. You can use them if you want. It's like an option to the main calibration.
- The signal-to-noise ratio is increased already at the calibration stage, and not at the summation or post-processing stage.
- Calibration does not introduce new noise into the original image and does not distort the image.
You can read about the problems of traditional calibration and its pitfalls here https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2641
About the advantages of the technology implemented in PGMania here https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2542
Gif animation of the calibration process. https://imageup.ru/img196/3868073/calibration.gif.html
There are 2 original lights. They are aligned by a signal to master. The other is subtracted from one, the noise stands out.
Further, this noise is subtracted from the light. At the output, we get a pure light and then debayerization takes place.
And you will get
- Opportunities and needs to think about what, how and what for you are doing that
- Full control over the processes of images alignment, calibration, stacking and post-processing
- Saving time in the absence of the need to capture additional images and their processing
- Better and more clear final results
- Flexible processing options
- Increased image resolution and signal-to-noise ratio as a result
All this is accompanied by
- A very long list of available features and options
- Detailed step-by-step documentation with tons of examples and descriptions
PGMania provides only tools and capabilities. It is a machine.
It does not generate masterpieces on the fly.
You control all processes yourself and at all stages.
This allows you to eliminate defects and achieve excellent results in processing.
Everything depends on the original footage, on your skills and understanding of the processes and techniques of processing.
Using the program may seem difficult at first glance.
Once you master all this, you will no longer be able to do without it.
The program is constantly evolving.
Each new version adds new functions relevant to astrophotography.
Known errors are quickly fixed.
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Licences
Trial period for demo version limited to 90 days.
For using PGMania after trial expired you should to register your PGMania instance.
PGMania distributes under 3 available licence types:
Using on 1 PC
Using on 2 PC
Using on any PC amount
More info about pricing, purchase or donations look here
https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2611
For payment and money transfers, contact the author directly at pgmania@yandex.ru
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The author is a professional programmer and amateur astronomer.
This allows you to create a demanded and high-quality software.
PGMania is completely unique and uses only own algorithms for processing astronomical images.
The program develop by one person, on his own initiative and at own expense.
This is self-written, without involving third-party developers.
The best way to support the author and the program is to buy it and use legally.
Register your copy of the program as a first step.
You can support the project by making donate here https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2611
This will help product to develop.
The amount can be any, we appreciate your contribution.
Also, we are looking for ongoing sponsors for long-term cooperation.
(c)2014-2025 Eugene Trifonov, aka p.v. /Pterodactilus Vulgaris/,
Saint-Petersburg/ Russia
t.me: @EugeneTrifonov
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Installation and requirements
PGMania works on the basis of multi-threaded, asynchronous, parallel and slightly distributed processing.
You can run as many instances of PGMania at the same time as your processor has cores and how intensively it can work.
But be careful with the xml logs, they should not conflict and rub each other!
In some operations, the program can be very demanding of computer resources.
The program's performance directly depends on the number of processor cores.
The amount of RAM used also depends on the size of the images and the length of the series.
The larger the matrix, the bit depth of the images and processing, and the longer the series, the more resources you may need.
We recommend using the maximum possible amount of RAM.
Processing astronomical images has a steady tendency to eat up all possible memory.
The processor should be multi-core and fast if possible.
The program will take as many resources as you allocate to it.
In short, give the program a powerful computer and it will reciprocate in the form of fast and efficient work.
PGMania uses its own web services to process some operations and to store information about user licenses.
Therefore, for correct operation, you must have an active Internet connection.
PGMania does not collect or store your personal information and does not provide it to third parties. It is safe.
Download and unzip the archive, create a shortcut for PGmania.exe and place it on your desktop.
PGMania requires the .Net 4.8 runtime environment installed https://github.com/microsoft/dotnet/tree/master/releases/net48
Operating system Win 7/8/10/11, any processor.
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Features (breaf description)
**** Image and video processing ****
Processing images with 8/16/32 bit depth
Supports most of known image file formats
Supports most of known DSLR image types (extensible list)
Shows EXIF for images and bpp/rate/codec, etc. for movies
Converts image file formats / supports batch image converting
Creates movies from image series / concatenates videos
Reconstructs broken numeration for image sequences
Creates 16bpp gray/color AVI(etc.) video.
Batch image processing to
-reflect images vertically, horizontally, to rotate 180 degrees
-to actualize virtual offsets and use the histogram settings
-to normalize the histogram and to invert to negative
and so on
**** Aligning, calibrating, stacking ****
Patented(*) calibrating algorithms based on using lights images only
Traditional calibrating algorithms using darks and flats images also supported
Aligning, fitting and calibrating* images using rotations and direct displacements /manual/auto in a several modes and orders
Customizable variable pitch for moving and rotation images when manually combining images
Aligning, fitting and calibrating* image series via reference points
Calibrating with dark/bias extraction from lights only
Substracting darks and flats from images series (optional)
Applying composition filters for image series with master
Stacking image series in a several modes, also with SNR optimization in combine with wide list of various evaluation submodes
RGB combining from separate b/w channels
Color channels aligning on RGB composition
LRGB combining with luminocity and RGB channels
Setting white balance for RGB composition
Generating star masks in several modes
Adjusting the histogram of individual channels and RGB composition
Mozaic (panorama) stacking by default
Comet (asteroid) aligning and stacking
Sorting images in comet movement direction
Filtering images by quality(*)
**** Analisys and calculations ****
Detecting stars on deep sky images with dependence on adjustable histogram settings and detection limits settings
Choosing 3 available modes of working area size for detecting stars
Calculating and showing histogram, coordinates, fwhm, snr, size, standart deviation and magnitudes for detected stars and average fwhm/snr for images
Generating stars list with direct link between stars on the image and stars in the list of detected stars.
Finding and recognizing stars on image series by reference points template defined on a master image
Automatically generating reference points on images for recognized stars
Generating star map with detected stars on separate image
Layer with star markers and text labels stored in a separate files
Reading and output of fits headers
**** Postprocess ****
One touch image settings for luminocity, background and contrast stretching, alive image histogram control
Showing histogram for selected stars
Creating adaptive negative mask from image with black level transparency (managed b/w inversion)
Flip/flop images for vertical and horisontal axes and to 180 dgr
Displacements/rotation, histogram adjustments with saving results in WYSIWYG style
Creates screenshots with detected stars markers, stars statistics info and user defined text markers placed on the image
Enchancement, noise reduction and sharpen images
Hot pixel removing (while calibration)
**** Color processing ****
Color processing with choosing transparency, color space, color type, compression and alpha settings.
Simple one touch actions like colors inverting and histogram normalizing.
Debyering - converting monochrome raw images to RGB color with various scenarios with saving result
Debayering "on the fly" without files saving for preview purposes
Splitting color RGB images into separate color channels
Combining images with separate color channels into RGB color image
**** FTP client****
Working with images of user FTP servers and (IP) cameras (Web preview, upload to web site and download to local PC).
Automatic transfering images from FTP servers and their folders to the local PC folders.
You can register and connect any amount of cameras to watch, transfer and download images.
Web service for transfer, publicate and watch (IP) cameras images via web site is optional payent service available by separate request.
Whatching camera images is possible on any web site. See more https://prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2632
**** Logging ****
Export/import loging to XML files
Separated logs for each processed images folder
Logging each image processing settings, align/calibrate results and statistics for detected stars
Maintenance of operations list for each of processed image and logging operations workflow and results to txt file
Storing information about master images used while align/calibrate for each of processed image pair.
*) All you need is two images with star fields (lights). No need for dark & bias files for calibration and fitting images.
There are available two PGMania patented calibration algorithms.
See more about PGMania original calibration technique here
https://www.prozarium.ru/TextDetails.aspx?TextID=2542
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Updates
09/2014-02/2025
Each release with new UI elements, logical or operational features has an increased version number.
The prefix a,b,.. after the version number means the same version with bug fixes or code optimization/refactoring.
Any new version or sub-version may contain significant changes in the functionality or stability of the program, resource consumption and performance.
v. 1.176 Added a mechanism for entering equatorial coordinates for stars and calculating the geometry of the image based on them. The coordinates are used to calculate the distance between reference stars in arcsec and the image resolution (sampling). You can start astrometry. See more https://t.me/pgmania/57/77
v. 1.175 Fixing bugs with centering when overlaying images during alignment and calibration
v. 1.174 Adding logs with alignment points, editing the design, optimizing memory and processor consumption
v. 1.173 Fixed the calculation of memory usage counters and resource allocation for IM
v. 1.172 New view modes, new menu functions, bug fixing, code improvements
v. 1.171 Bugs and algorithms fixes, refactoring, improvements, form redesign. The restrictions on the number of processed files in the trial version have been removed.
v. 1.170 Added mode for viewing corners of images. The mode is selected in the view list. See https://t.me/pgmania/1/53
Also added auto-filling sucsessful combinations of align points to speed up the alignment procedure.
v. 1.169 Added sorting of images by parameters: Filename, Creation time, Image dimensions, file weight and most importantly:
number of detected stars and fwhm. The program recalculates the selected images in the list automatically and produces a list sorted by the specified parameter.
Then, in one piece, we select the necessary/unnecessary/best/worst/new, etc. in the list.
This allows you to no longer waste time on manually cleaning the series from garbage and spoilage and do it automatically, which ultimately saves a lot of time and resources.
For details and examples see in Telegram group https://t.me/pgmania/1/45
v. 1.168 Added reading and output of fits headers
v. 1.167 The interface has been redesigned on base of splitter panels. All panels are customizable to suit the user's needs and make work much more convenient. Known bugs fixed.
!!! Please note that the XML files with images data and settings in working folders now have been renamed! For not to loose data you should also rename existing XML files with your images data in all working folders to new names.
What should you do? The program will create new installation files with new names, you will need to rename your old files with XML data, replace with them the new files created by the program, keeping the new file names.
v. 1.165-1.166 Changes in some algorithms and settings, fixes in working with star masks, changing third-party libraries used to the latest versions, other improvements
v. 1.164 Added saving of all application settings for each working folder, including special files. This way, you can carry out full-fledged project work and at any time switch to a project in another folder and continue previously interrupted work in it, without losing the settings of the current folder.
v. 1.161-1.163 Speeding up work and increasing the reliability and accuracy of alignment algorithms, image display and images stacking engines.
Corrections and changes to the algorithms for using dark and flat files.
Changes in histogram settings algorithms and interface, adding new histogram tuning controls.
Code refactoring and optimization, UI design changes
v. 1.160 Added options and algorithms for aligning channels in RGB composition.
Added auto saving and automatic re-labelling of files previously given special labels, e.g. master, rgb channels, dark, flat, etc.
Code refactoring and UI improvements
v. 1.159 Added a form for setting the parameters of the star mask, redesigning the algorithm for generating a star mask, UI optimizations
v. 1.157-1.158 Refactoring and optimization of alignment algorithms. Adding an additional detection area of 75%, changes in recognition algorithms when using a custom area, changes in working with markers, image output optimization for previews, fixes in rgb composition building, etc.
v. 1.156 Added the option to set limits on the size of stars when recognizing images. Redesigned algorithms and fixed bugs when working with markers. Algorithms for setting settings and managing the image histogram have been changed. Added option to set midpoint for contrast level
v. 1.155 Added option to set calibration density. Bug fixing, code optimization
v. 1.153-1.154 Algorithms for subtracting darks from lights and processing with flats have been improved and corrected. The operation involves both the sharing of darks and flats, and only darks without flats. It is recommended to use for preliminary cleaning of lights from thermal noise and amplifier glow and before basic calibration operations.
New operations for extracting darks and biases from lights and their compensation have also been improved. This further reduces noise to a great extent.
v. 1.151-1.152 Calibration algorithms improved. An option has been added to extract the constant component of noise from lights (dark and bias) and subtract it from the useful signal.
This reduces the dark current noise, matrix read noise, and amplifier glow on calibrated lights.
Intermediate calibration results are also available, including dark/bias, noise and ather files when the monochrome/auxiliary calibration type is selected
v. 1.148 - 1.150 Fixed rotation angle calculation in offsets when aligning images.
Improvements to algorithms for comets stacking.
Added compositing operation with master with free overlay.
Added splitting and filtering files for various processing Stages.
Improvements in Stages, reduction and optimization of memory consumption, bug fixes.
v. 1.147 - Alignment algorithms optimization, offsets calculating algorithms correction, refactoring, bugs fixing
v. 1.145 - Added sorting of images of comets/asteroids in order of removal of a point from the center of the frame.
This made it possible to arrange the combined images in the comet/asteroid motion sequence.
In addition, this operation allows you to create an AVI video clip based on files numbered in the correct order (also in 16-bit format)
or GIF animation from aligned and sorted images.
Examples: https://astronomy.ru/forum/index.php/topic,122589.msg5752456.html#msg5752456
v. 1.144 - Added alignment (and stacking) of comets/asteroids.
How to use it? Manually determine a new star by the coordinates of the comet (poke the comet with the mouse and assign it as a star) or take an existing (from the auto-determined) star on each processed image. Mark this star as a "UFO" point and apply the Single Point Alignment operation to the image with the wizard.
The images will be aligned by the comet/asteroid.
Important! Linear offset in x,y is calculated between given UFO points. The angle of rotation is not calculated in this operation.
Accordingly, before aligning the images according to the comet, align the series according to the stars. In this case, when adding, you get the sum of the stars. At the same time, you remove the rotation of the field.
The comet on the stellar sum will be smeared.
Then we align the (already star-aligned) series with the comet and add it as usual. At the output, we get the sum of the comet. At the same time, the stars will travel on a cometary sum, the comet will gather to a point.
Important 2! Reset all reference points on all images before working with the comet.
If the sum by stars is not needed or the rotation of the field is not important, you can collect the sum by the comet directly from the sources.
How you combine them is up to you.
Now it is fashionable to make animations of the movement of comets or asteroids. To do this, use the "Create AVI from image sequence" operation on a series of images aligned by stars. She will create a video of the comet's movement through a fixed star field. Gif animation program does not.
Examples: https://astronomy.ru/forum/index.php/topic,122589.msg5750741.html#msg5750741
v. 1.143 - For all modes of setting the image scale, getting the true coordinates in the raster when clicking on the image and highlighting the star selected by clicking is added.
- Added definition of an arbitrary rectangular area of the image as an area for detecting stars. You can also use the selection to cut out a section of an image and create a new image from it. The list of functions for the selected area will expand in the future.
- Added item "Selected area" to the list of setting the selection area for detecting stars. Thus, stars can also be detected in a given arbitrary part of the image.
- Added an operation to fix elongated and blurry stars. The operation performs a linear compression of the image in the selected direction and corrects the smearing and stretching of the stars. The geometry and dimensions of the image do not change.
v. 1.140-1.142 Сode optimization and refactoring
v. 1.139 - Added new author's algorithm for calculating and saving on calibrated images original colors matching to the source light images. After calibration, the debayered colors matches the original, there are no artifacts in the image, the resolution of the image remains maximum, and the noise is minimal. The program does everything automatically. Known bugs were fixed.
v. 1.135-1.138 - Reworked calibration algorithms. Removed unnecessary algorithms
- Added transparency adjustment for lights, including overlay with master
- Added automatic sending of application error reports through a web service
- Added saving results with variants of Bayer matrix type for calibration type "Include intermediates"
v. 1.134 - Reworked and parallelized algorithms for recognizing images by stars. Due to this, the speed of image alignment has been significantly increased, several times. The more processor cores are used in processing, the higher the speed. On a 2-core Intel i5 / 1500 gHz with 4 logical processors and 8GB of RAM, the alignment of images 3028x2048 takes less than 30 seconds!
v. 1.132-133 - Added debayering as an option to calibration. Deep refactoring and global cleaning of bugs made. Significant performance improvements have been achieved, memory leaks have been eliminated, and many of algorithms have been optimized.
v. 1.131 - Added management of hidden files. You can hide image files in the folder, delete them, or make them visible again. This option is useful, for example, for pre-filtering images.
- Added a new user-defined parameter "Star Detection Threshold" to adjust the sensitivity of the detection algorithm. The parameter affects the elimination of "bounce", that is, the detection of phantoms of bright stars.
An increase in the threshold leads to a decrease in the number of detected stars, and a decrease in it leads to the appearance of phantoms in bright stars. Phantoms slow down image recognition and degrade image alignment, so it is important to set the correct threshold for a series of images. The detection threshold directly depends on the signal-to-noise ratio. The default value in program is 45 and can be changed by the user.
- Implemented global bug fixes and performance improvements. Continued work on parallelizing processes between cores.
- Added live examples of deep space image processing with all processing steps - alignment, calibration, debayering and stacking. Examples have been uploaded to the "Examples for Exercise" folder at https://sourceforge.net/projects/pgmania/files/
v. 1.130 - Improvements in star mask generation procedure. Added new options for setting mask color, blur radius and size of stars.
v. 1.129 - The stacking algorithms have been revised, new options have been added, incl. into the interface.
In particular, a processes visualization option has been added, which allows real-time on screen tracking of operations performed.
Also added option that sets the length of the series in cycle during serial stacking.
In subsequent cycles, the series add up to each other in new series, etc. See the help file for details.
Improved performance due to thread parallelization.
v. 1.128 - Added synchronization of XML logs and conflicts resolving in XML logs when working with image folders in different sessions and on different PCs. The overall reliability of storage and transmission of processing results has been increased.
Known bugs fixed, overall performance improved due to refactoring, parallelizm in routine operations, freeing of unused memory resources. Increased stability of the program working and processing speed. Resource requirements consumed by the program have been reduced.
v. 1.127 - Added images debayer matrix binding to settings store and saving in xml . Code optimization, performance improvements.
v. 1.126 - Added the "Update offset for related images" option. This option updates the adjusted offsets for all related files.
Added the "Actualize offset" option. This option moves and rotates adjusted image to previosly calculated while aligning virtual offsets .
For details see the description in Help file.
v. 1.125 - Added debayering "On the fly". Used for previewing color raw images without saving debayered images on disk. Option enables by the checkbox on the left panel.
Also added to the files menu options for enhancement, noise reduction and sharpening. They creates a new files for as usual.
v. 1.124 - Added debayering (converting monochrome raw images to RGB color image) with various scenarios and for any color matrix (27 types of debayering in total).
Added separation of color RGB (24bpp) images into separate monochrome images (16bpp) with color channels.
Together with the previously added operation for creating a combined color image from separate b / w color channels, this functionality completes the cycle of creating basic operations for working with color images.
Thus, the program can be used for full-fledged work with both monochrome and color cameras. Testing was carried out, in particular, on cameras QHY5III178M, QHY5III178C, etc.
v. 1.123 - Bug fixing, changes in licensing and pricing policy.
v. 1.122 - Added operation for prepare images to create mozaic (panorama). First you should align source images and get offsets over master image. Then do "Mozaic prepare" operation over aligned images. This will create a new images with equal enlarged size bounds common for all images. Source images shifts inside this bounds with previously calculated offsets so that no one of them do not cross the new bounds. After this you are able to stack prepared images and get the final mozaic (panorama) summ image.
v. 1.121 - The application layout has been redesigned, the working area of the image has been expanded, the controls and settings have been optimized.
Fixed bugs in working with XML files while changing working folder, eliminated cases of incorrect offsets calculation for some images. Today PGMania carries out 100% automated aligning with 100% high-quality results. A pixel-by-pixel accuracy of combining images in all modes is achieved. Thanks for all PGMania users for patience and expectation. It was not an easy task, but now it is done!
v. 1.120 - Remastered manual operations for correction of automatically calculated offsets for more accurate aligning of images. The correction is stored and displays separately from the offsets and summed with them during the "Apply offset correction" operation. Total offsets will still stored in aligned images for subsequent pairwise calibration operations. For details see the help section about offsets.
v. 1.119 - Added batch image processing to reflect images vertically, horizontally, to rotate 180 degrees, to actualize virtual offsets and use the histogram settings, to normalize the histogram and to invert to negative. All of this now working for list of selected images.
- The image alignment algorithm based on the use of homography relationships between images has been fixed and revised. Significantly increased the veracity of its results
- Added choosable auto normalization option for align operations that use star detection.
v. 1.118 - Completely redesigned alignment algorithms. A new basic algorithm for determining stars and offset calculations based on original authoring algorithms has been added. New functions for offset correction and offset transfer between operations are added, the default color scheme setting at the first start and some new functions in the interface are added. Significantly increased the overall reliability of automatic recognition and calibration of images (close to 100%), also increased the overall speed of the application and fixed known bugs. Added a mechanism for tracking the release of new versions.
v. 1.117 - Added new operation for calibrate previously aligned images. Now you can carefully align series of images, either via ref points or via auto detecting algorithm, then if needed, correct images aligning across common master image and then calibrate aligned images in pairs, as usual.
See screenshot https://yadi.sk/a/Le5L3bv73VQE3f/5dd3f474e1dfec04e2cd266c and video tutorial https://youtu.be/WvDNM1syRyE
This work only if all operations are maked inside PGMania, because image offsets are stored in inner XML and are used while calibrating.
- The operations menu is rearranged and streamlined to make it easier to navigate align and calibrate operations.
- Added field for show amount of defined reference stars at image.
- Added 'Overlay' checkbox for quickly switching between view of image composition with master image and view without overlays
v. 1.116 - Added ability for choosing 3 available modes of working area size for detecting stars - 100%, 50% and 25% from image size. This is usefull for increase detecting speed on large images with great amount of stars.
Look at screenshot here https://yadi.sk/i/OnohBa8_TgIIZQ
- Added simple one touch actions like colors inverting and histogram normalizing.
v. 1.115 - Added wide set of functionality for color processing with choosing transparency, color space, color type, compression and alpha settings. Look at screenshot here https://yadi.sk/i/N8TRFxoPXD1nJg
- Added simple one touch actions like colors inverting and histogram normalizing.
- Simplified, improved and rewritten algorithms for image calibration with substructing dark and flat images.
Now calibration results can get on the fly when dark and flat images are defined.
v. 1.114 - Added generation and editing of the star mask. Auto-defined stars can add, delete and resize them.
The star mask is generated on the base of the marker layer as a transparent .png file with white circles of stars.
The mask can be used when adding a series of pictures, setting it as a master file.
Histogram levels for the mask of stars are adjustable, as well as for all images. The blending mode of the mask is selected from the list.
This allows frame-by-frame addition to take into account the mask, which can help in eliminating the swelling of stars in the amount.
The mask itself can be generated from any snapshot, for example, from the sum of a series by the median.
Improved algorithms for obtaining images from cameras in the FTP client. Fixed noticed bugs, improved program interface.
v. 1.113 - Layer with star markers and text labels moved to a separate gif file. Increased image rendering speed. Added ability to choose algoritm for offsets calculation while aligning - by rectangle contour and by its corners.
The algorithm for automatically searching reference points has been reworked and the visualization of results has been added.
The same visualization is also present when combining images. The matches found are drawn with lines, which makes evaluation of the result easier and more visual.
The layer with image markers is rendered into separate files stored in the folder with the original images.
This has accelerated the visualization process and allows you to work with markers consistently and independently of the original images.
Marker files contain text, star markers, star statistics, control points, lines, etc., as image files.
Added the choice of the preferred algorithm for calculating offsets. This calculation is based on contours and angles of quadrilaterals.
The algorithm for calculating offsets by contours is based on the OpenCV algorithm, which describes the outlines of the figure from the matches found.
The algorithm for calculating offsets for control points (the corners of the figure) is copyright.
It works more precisely and faster, and is preferred when aligning to reference points.
The choice of algorithm depends on the source material and preferences.
v. 1.112 - Added functionality of FTP client. This working with images of user FTP servers and (IP) cameras (Web preview, upload to web site and download to local PC).
Automatic transfering images from FTP servers and their folders to the local PC folders and to website database.
You can register and connect any amount of cameras to watch, transfer and download images.
Web service for transfer, publicate and watch (IP) cameras images via web site is optional payent service available by separate request.
It is working via prozarium.ru web site only. You can watch and share images from allsky cameras, telescopes, secure, etc.
Rewrited algorithms for images alignment.
Improvements and bugs fixing as usual. Life is getting a little better)
v. 1.111 - Added functionality to create a color image from separate b/w RGB channels. As an input files there uses prepared channel sums R, G and B (in any format) and output result is a color image in .tiff.
Mechanism is easy to use and convenient. The desired files for channels are set via the menu in the file list, as the corresponding R, G, or B component, and when all 3 channels defined, at screen will be combibed RGB image constructed in real time.
Histogram settings of any channel can be changed at real time. This results to changing of white balance and the final histogram of combined images composition in color.
Alignment of separate channels can be done at the same time. Also it is possible to define special files while RGB combine, such as master, dark, flat or median.
Composition on screen will be constructed from RGB and this images. Saving the current combined RGB image is done by selecting an item in the context menu on the picture, or by selecting the appropriate operation on the "Stack, postprocess" tab.
Saving RGB composition with other special files done via the 'Create overall screenshot' option in the files menu.
More visual, simple and convenient mechanism simply does not exist.
v. 1.110 - Added ability to apply median filter to aligned source images before stacking them. It significally helps to clear the source files and summ from satellite tracks, cosmic rays, noise, etc. This realised as a separate operation.
-A Help file extended and reformatted:
-Added table of contents with links to appropriate sections.
-Added sections conserning working with detected stars, image and stars statistics, reference points, recognition of identical stars in a series of images and using it in images align operations.
-Added screenshots for most of help articles.
v. 1.109 - Finding and recognizing stars algorithm improved. Trial period for using demo version limited to 30 days.
v. 1.108 - Added finding and recognizing stars on selected images by using reference points defined on master image. Operation uses any template with 4 stars and finds it on other images. After recognize operation completed with success you can easilly align image to fit it with master image. Be sure this stars successfully detectes for all of destination images.
v. 1.107 - Added step for improved automation of images align by reference points. This includes auto detecting stars for any of selected images or for image series. Auto generating reference points for image series will coming soon too.
- Added manual defining of a new not autodetected stars for desired coordinates on image. Now it is possible to add a star and reference point for images with different or not equal arrays of autodetected stars.
- Added image file renaming on the fly.
- Redesigned and improved UI.
v. 1.106 - Added substracting dark and flat images from image series. It is mostly nessesary for removing amplifier glow from lights. First you need to substract dark & flat from lights, then align and calibrate image pairs without dark and flat.
v. 1.105 - Critical bugs were fixed.
v. 1.104 -Added support for IP cameras file name format with a time stamp in the file name. First you need to create sequence for this files which does their renaming adding to file name the prefics with digital counter.
Then make avi as usual using ffpmpeg (Create AVI PGMania operation). For frames with JPEG format is used libx264 codec as default.
- Some bugs were fixed.
v. 1.103 -The program has been translated on new base libraries versions of OpenCV and ImageMagick. This allowed to apply new more effective mechanisms of image recognition and construction.
- Added a new alignment mechanism based on using generated stars map in the image. The number of detected stars is determined by the user itself. Star map may be saved as separate file.
- Improved UI and fixed known bugs including those affecting on aligning and calibrating a series of images.
v. 1.102 -Online registration and activation of PGMania is now available! Use direct link in program for this.
- Adding support for most of known DSLR image types.
- Improved functionality and speeds, redisigned interface.
- Known bugs fixed and code refactoring was done.
v. 1.101 -Added reducing image size alghrithm for better recognition functionality while aligning image pairs.
- Added max offset limits for image displacement and rotation while auto aligning images pairs. Limits can be set for each image or for whole folder.
- Added more flexible analisys for estimate aligning results. Only well aligned and fitted images are allowed to calibration and stacking.
v. 1.100 -Added resizing images for a new size in pixels or to percentage of original image size.
v. 1.099 -Added more automation to aling and calibration processes, improve performance and usability.
Added maintenance of operations list with image files and information storing about master images used while processing the image pair. It is easy to see and restore processing history.
'Serial' stack and 'In pairs' stack algorithms now uses SNR analizes for optimal stacking and use images sorting based on SNR values while stacking to optimise the final result.
Known bugs fixed and code refactoring was done.
v. 1.098 -Added one more algorithm for calibration - 'Selective'. It uses both 'And' algorithm and 'Or' algorithms for each calibrating images pair,
analizing the resulting images for ghosts, fwhm and SNR, and taking the best resulting images pair -
one calibrated image from 'And' algorithm and another calibrated image from 'Or' algorithm).
v. 1.097 -Added one more algorithm for align and calibrate image series via setting reference points in images.
Detecting algorithms improved functionality and speeds. Also increased its recognition reliability.
Added fixing histogram settings for all folder images. Each image stores its own settings which can be switched or replace by the common folder settings.
v. 1.096 -Added ability for dragging image inside window for viewing in full size mode and zoom mode.
Added image contrast tuning and ability to create image mask via setting transparency for black.
Fixed known bugs, been improved processes for work with detected stars and more.
v. 1.095 -Added calculating of fwhm, snr and star magnitudes for detected stars and average fwhm/snr for whole images.
Added fields for image resolution and pixel size. This settings used in this calculations.
Added ability to set desired magnitude for any reference star and recalculate stars statistics.
Added ability to flip images horisontally or vertically.
Added showing a histogram for any of selected star from detected stars list or for a star selected at image.
v. 1.094 -Added stars detection for any deep sky image. Added ability to composite original image with a star map.
Added list with detected stars and ability to mark a star from a list on the star map. Also it is possible to find a star in list by click it directly on the image.
XML log file now created for every folder you work with. Log contains description for last operationwith image, used master image, operation results, image offsets and detected stars list.
Added ability to add any text markers to the image with a font size you like.
Added easy to use direct saving of original image with applying its histogram adjustments and align movements to a new file with a similar name.
Added ability to make a full frame screenshot with detected stars and user text markersplaced on the image.
v. 1.093 -Added export to XML and restore from XML image/histogram settings and results/operation settings for align/calibrate operations.
v. 1.090 -Added stacking image series in several modes, such as serial stacking, stacking in pairs and IM evaluate algorithms. All methods uses filtering and histogram correction of intermediate stacking stages. Added post processing images using alive histogram control for image contrast stretching.
v. 1.089 -Added processing for auto align and calibrate image series in several modes. Added operations logging. Added statistics with cordinates and brightnes for detected stars.
v. 1.088 -Added some changes to interface and usability. Perfomans for auto aligning and calibration was enhanced. Fixed bug with fitting some image formats while auto aligning and/or calibrating images(16bpp fits, pgm, etc.)..
v. 1.087 -Added auto align, fit and calibrate images using rotations and direct displacements.
v. 1.086 -Added one more image calibration algorithm.
v. 1.084 -Added functionality for auto align and calibrate images (w/0 rotations).
v. 1.081 -Added functionality to create composite of manually aligned images.
v. 1.080 -Added functionality for manual calibrating of 2 close images by pairs. Calibration removes dust, noise and hot pixels from both of images. No need for dark, flat or bias files more. Enjoy it.
v. 1.070 -Added functionality for manuall align'g images using the master frame. The image may be moved and/or rotated concerning reference image.
v. 1.061 -Added ability for single/multi image conversion from one image format to another. algorithms for image sequence constructing were optimised and speeded.
v. 1.06 - Added functionality for converting image files from one format to another. Supports batch converting operations for image sequence.
Image formats can be any of well known, for example: .pgm, .fits, .tiff, .jpeg, .gif, .psd, etc.
v.1.04 -Added support for RawVideo, which makes it possible to obtain AVI to RawVideo format directly from the photo series, suitable for direct work with programs such as Autostakkert and so forth.
Thus eliminating the need for intermediate conversion 16 bit AVI to SER.
However, for Raw video frame written in 16bpp format Y800, or as RGB555, and that formats with 8 bits, making Raw video format is of little use if the source code of 16 bits.
Download Latest Version
PGMania_1.177_x64.rar (142.3 MB)
