New in Version 1.6
Summary
- Very large numbers of images can be stacked on computers with little memory because temporary files will be used instead of memory, if necessary.
- Improved alignment and composition at the boundary between sky and ground.
- Improved alignment for images with unusual conditions.
Details
Starry Landscape Stacker can now use temporary files to store work in progress. SLS decides dynamically whether to use files or memory based on the number and size of images, and the available memory. It is now possible to process stacks of 100's of images using as little as 2GB of memory. There is a small speed penalty for using files instead of memory. For computers with SSDs, overall processing time is 10 to 20% longer when using temp files when compared to using memory.
The composition process has been changed to produce more accurate results in the sky near the boundary with the ground. There is a slight performance cost for this change, but it noticeably improves the quality of the result when large numbers of images (>20) are used.
Changes have been made to the alignment algorithm to improve results for images with one or more of: very high noise, very low noise, very bright sky, very few visible stars in the sky, very long lenses (e.g., 600+mm), and fish-eye lenses. Alignment is also more accurate near the boundary between sky and ground. Typically there will be little or no change in the time required to align images. In the worst case (thing that may not have aligned before) alignment can take up to 3x longer.
The user is now required to type in the focal length of the lens when it is not found in the EXIF information. This can happen when a lens that does not support digital communication with the camera is used. The focal length is used to improve the alignment.
Minor UI improvements
- It is now faster to make larges changes to the brush size with the [, ] keys.
- It is now possible to change the eraser size when not erasing.