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Unfortunate naming on the new FastTrack data?

Mark KnechtMark Knecht
in PixInsight
Adam,
   In the video where you are going to open your first light frame, at 11 min 49 sec, you state that you have 182 files. When I unzipped the full set of downloads I had far more. Doing it again but only doing the first 4 I get exactly 182 lights by unzipping only 2/19, 2/20, 2/25_1 and 2/25_2. Did I miss an instruction to only grab the first 4 zip files?

   I don't know if you want to deal with this but there seems to be really unfortunate naming on these new data files. Each of the groups is named with the sub number before the date. When uncompressed, the files, sorted by name, puts the first shots from each date group together by number vs keeping them sorted by date and then shot number. Additionally there's a missing underscore between Flaming & Star.

   Also not a big deal but the flats all have the same name with computer created (1), (2), etc. type names which is sort of messy. I'm going to rename them with _1, _2, etc. by hand for my copy.

   Hopefully none of this causes problems with the PixInsight tools but I suspect it's going to lead to lots of repeat questions for you in the future if it isn't addressed.

   Continuing on with the new FastTrack videos. 

   Thanks for all the work you do.

Cheers,
Mark

Comments

  • Mark KnechtMark Knecht
    I will offer that if the files are kept in separate subdirectories then at least they stay ordered that way. I think there's a way in WBPP to load all subdirectories so maybe that's the way to manage these files?


  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    Yes, I did indicate you should only grab the first four. I will make this clearer on the page. I made the first set available as a bonus (it is good data).

    Regarding the file naming. People often complain I am an elitist and only work with my own high quality data. Then I whenever I publish other people's real-world data, warts and all, they complain. LOL This is how the data was given to me. I have found this kind of thing to be entirely typical. When working with other people's data you have to live in their mind (or circumstance) a little. Anthony used SharpCap to take his data and likely the file names are the result of his acquisition. Yes, you are correct- when you put all of the data together the alphnumeric result is organized by index frame for each date-time observed.

    Regarding the loading of subdirectories- there is another consequence of using someone else's data. Anthony used CharpCap which unfortunately uses a keyword (FRAMETYP) which is not recognized by PI (or anyone really). I fixed the 182 files for  FastTrack. Sill need to fix the other files..If you load the data with the literal buttons (as I show)- there will not be an issue. If you load the other data with Directory/Files...there will be.

    I am going to try to fix this today.

    -the Blockhead

  • Mark KnechtMark Knecht
    Great explanations. Thanks. 

    I'm not meaning to complain. It's just a bit different than the previous FastTrack data and I was surprised. Having the dates getting intermingled is likely to make Blinking before alignment more problematic but it's not insurmountable because again, if I keep each day in a different directory then I can load them in order that way.

    And funny as it is, I got her by reviewing the older FastTrack which was at the top but has now been removed. (Or moved down.) And I had to laugh when the photometric stuff didn't work and I went looking for solutions and found the new section further down and had to start over. No big deal. I haven't processed anything in months so I had planned on going through FastTrack and then starting over on Fundamentals.

    Again, thanks!
  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    Thanks... 

    Concerning the files... if you just want to list the files of a particular date (within a mixed set of files)
    you can type *02_19* for example. This will list all of the files from the 19th that you can then select and blink. You can add more files to blink for more dates to keep everything chronological.
    -the Blockhead
  • Mark KnechtMark Knecht
    Thanks but I've already separated them into individual directories on my data server and backed up the data server to my NAS backup server. I'm just pressing on with the new FastTrack videos which is more fun.
  • Wade Hilmo
    Regarding the suggestion to type "*02_19*", I believe that this is operating system dependent.

    It works fine on Windows.  I'm running on Kubuntu (the same distribution that the PixInsight developers use), and the file open dialog doesn't work that way.  The only way to select files by group is to pre-sort them into directories, like Mark has done.

    I posted a question on the PixInsight forum about how to do searching this way in the file open dialog, and it was met with silence.  Since this is the configuration that the developers use, I suspect that they would have answered if it was possible.

    If you (or anyone) finds a way to make this work on Linux with KDE, I would be interested in hearing about it.  I find that it's a significant loss of functionality versus Windows.
  • Mark KnechtMark Knecht
    Wade - Like you I am a Kubuntu user so it seems we are seeing similar issues. 

    I'm slowly getting through Adam's new videos. Sorting them into directories seemed to work fairly well for grabbing a reasonable number of files and keeping it all straight, at least in my head. I can add them to WPBB just fine and have gotten through the Debayer stage. I then wanted to blink the Debayered files but found that PI crashed (twice) if I added all 182 Debayered files. My machine is a Ryzen 5950X with 32GB DRAM and PI just completely disappeared. The process was gone as viewed in btop. I then tried adding about 150 files to Blink with no problems, and then added the remaining 32 files and this time no crash. 

    Sadly, again because of the way the Debayered files are all in one directory the file sorting problem returns. I started writing some sed code to just rename the files in numerical order which I think will be a better solution for me as I would really prefer to not lose the order information as I proceed through the training.

    Good to know there's another Kubuntu user here. Send me a note privately if you want to investigate things together.
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