I like that Voyager leaves deleted files untouched. But I would love to hear advise regarding how then this selection is later incorporated into your processing workflow. Could RTManager introduce a “flag” in the file’s name indicating it has been “discarded” to later avoid importing it into, say, Pixinsight?
That would be very useful. Either tag them, or move to another folder.
It is great that you can reject poor subs immediately whilst the job is ongoing, so that Robotarget does not finish with a target if you do not yet have enough good subs. However, it is a slow manual process to remove those defective subs.
I tend to import everything into Pixinsight and then use Blink and SubframeSelector to weed out the poor subs.
I’ve been working on a tool that does pretty much that. You can enter a rating formula much like in the Subframe Selector and then automatically delete/move images if their rating is below a certain threshold. The rating and deleted flag can also automatically be exported to RoboTarget so that it keeps running a target until enough good frames have been captured. It’s unfortunately not yet finished though, but I’ll post a link to it here if that’s not against the forum’s rules.
Thanks guys. While I see the merits of Voyager not deleting the files I think there could be some benefit to moving them, adding a name identifier, and the like. Of course, we all end up using Blink. But even on that point, I have also always felt Blink could be improved upon to make it more convenient. It has some shortcomings and quirks. Having said that, like armchair quarterbacks, we consumers and end-users can sound pretty demanding. Samuel, your project sounds very interesting.
I would love the option for “Deleted” to be added as a prefix to the file name if shots are deleted in the RoboTarget manager (And the prefix removed if the deleted sub was un-deleted again) as it would make it really easy to sort by file name when loading for integration, and exclude all files starting with “Deleted”
So far I have been manually matching file names of the files I mark to delete in RoboTarget manager and deleting the files using Windows Explorer, which always carries the risk of deleting the wrong one.
You can export the csv about the deleted in RoboTarget and do what you want physically on the file using external script or application, Voyager will never delete for you a file or change name or similar.
Leo, I admire your “resolve”.
Actually, I hadn’t been aware that I could simply exporting csv. That alone helps.
otherwise you can use the NDA version of Voyager (if you have) and access directly to the data, but also in this case you need to write code to manage the interaction and do what you want on the file.
Or you can write your own application/plugin to intercept the event from application server and recognize a new file, process it and decide what to do.
You have a lot of way for doing what you need, but this means to writing some code or ask to someone to write a plugin.
Leo, I admire your “resolve”.
I go my own way with my ideas, sorry.
Don’t be sorry Leo, there is no problem with that. I would prefer that you say “Never” so that we know where we stand and can use whatever workflow suits what we want, than for it to be ambiguous if you would do it or not.
Paul, delete files is not something that must be in charge to an automation software.
Its not question to be ambiguos, I already wrote this in so many places. So this is not under to-do list.
Just to remember … if you need a dedicated feature(s) you can ask for a custom development.
This can be a modify or implementation in Voyager, a script, an application, a new DragScript block …
I am happy to keep on deleting files myself if that is how things are, but I was not sure if I had missed it being considered in another thread.
I am no developer, so I will have to teach myself how to write a script to automate the physical file deletion using the CSV report, always good to be learning something new.
Paul, as I said Voyager do not delete files for you physically.
So if you want you can ask for custom development or manually do this or simple running a tools like in Pixinsight to score the fit during the processing.
Scope of logical delete file in Voyager RoboTarget is not do delete physically files but reach the number of file you want for the target if you think a particular session is under the standard, infact you can also decide to undelete the file.
I have long been an Astro Pixel Processor user, but I might have to look at PI again for image grading/scoring, the issue being the learning curve and investment of time in to learning PI when I have become quite time poor.
The only automated grading software I have used is the tool by the SGP developers but I did not like the results in that subs I would bin without a second look received higher quality scores than ones I would have kept so I continue to manually grade based on visual inspection for star shape, contrast and HFR.
For what I am doing, a custom development would be very hard to justify unless there was a queue of users wanting the same, I will just adjust my post capture workflow.
Dear Paul,
I don’t put something into Voyager because everyone asks for it but only if I think it fits with the philosophy that has been adopted.
Your belief as far as I’m concerned is not acceptable:
you can’t make an automation program do something like that. You need a dedicated inspection program and related user input, it’s not the intended purpose for Voyager and for the RoboTarget, this is why if you want it’s a custom development.
Dear Leonardo, may I post a link to my tool here? It may be of interest to the participants of this thread.
Sure , if you remember I was interested in purchase it for adding to Voyager Advanced when finished.
Some of the APIs was developed to help this kind of tools.
All the best
Leonardo
Alright, thanks!
Here’s the link to my tool: GitHub - TheCyberBrick/FITS-Rating-Tool: A tool for viewing and automatically grading FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) .fit/.fits/.fts files
It’s licensed under the GPL so it’s open source.
Like I said before, it’s not finished yet, but I have already successfully used it myself to sort out images and to mark them as deleted in RoboTarget. I’ll try to get an alpha release build out soon (or you could already build it yourself with Visual Studio).
The main idea behind the tool:
For the first time, load up some images by hand and create an evaluation formula until the results look right. You should be able to pretty much copy and paste PixInsight Subframe Selector formulas as it’s almost exactly the same (though it’s missing some newer PixInsight variables like PSFSignalWeight). The app can also be configured to automatically load and show images as Voyager saves them, just like Voyager’s own FITS viewer.
Then, create a job file from that evaluation formula and choose an exporter (e.g. whether the results/ratings should be saved to a CSV, FITS header, be exported to RoboTarget, etc.).
From that point on you can then automatically run the job via command line or e.g. via DragScript. Previous results can be cached so that evaluation for a new image is fast even when there are thousands of images in total.
Since comparing ratings between images typically only makes sense when they’re of the same target, you can configure the tool to group images together based on various aspects (target, filter, exposure time, arbitrary FITS header, etc.). Like that you can sort out the worst images (according to your evaluation formula) per target, filter, etc. You could also make the tool analyze your entire image collection in one go and have it export all the ratings to RoboTarget.
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