[Closed] user's manual

I have the same question. Perhaps a small booklet in PDF.......Thanks.

I have made lights, darks, bias and flat frames. I don't understand how to start using Astro Pixel Processor......

Posted by: Lucas5959

Is there a manual from APP?

Dear @lucas5959, @adrie-suijkerbuijk,

A complete manual in PDF format is not yet available, but I am working on this with high priority.

Adrie, APP is really simple, just load all your frames, set settings in menus 2)-6) and click on Integrate in 6)  and APP will do the rest.

Have a look at this tutorial, it will show you how APP will automatically process multi-filter data including calibration:

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/fully-automatic-multi-channel-processing-in-astro-pixel-processor-by-mabula/

Please let me know if you have additional questions,

Kind regards,

Mabula

Thank you, Mabula. Perhaps most beginners start using a reflex camera like Canon or Nikon. A sep-by-step guide could be very simple. Regards, Adrie

Hi, is the manual at this moment ready?

No, as that will be announced clearly on the site. I have no ETA myself, @mabula-admin should know more about that so I tagged him.

Any news on an User Manual recently so I don’t have dig through forums only to find outdated solutions?

Sorry, not involved into that myself; I'll pass it to Mabula directly so hopefully he has an idea. Thanks.

Ah good news, new tutorials are about to be released most likely tomorrow!

@vincent-mod

Those new videos on the APP Vimeo account are very useful! However, I was wondering if there is going to be a PDF user manual? Even if it was just a current collection of pop-up information boxes it would be a nice reference.

Yes, there is going to be a written version as well!

Any update on this topic ?

For sure I'm not an expert but "high priority" should be a different thing than something started in March and not yet finished in December (IMHO) 🙂

Best,

L.

Ciao,

@bbhtaylor : maybe something like this will be ok ?

[['DDP Saturation Threshold (SAT.TH): adjust DDP saturation background protection thresholdThis is a percentage of the data range. If your background (peak of the histogram) is at 15% of the histogram, you will protect the background by setting this value a bit higher than 15%, for instance at 20%. This slider is very usefull to apply saturation to nebula, galaxies and stars, while preventing the injection of unwanted chromatic noise into the background. Only applicable to colour data and if the saturation checkbox is enabled.Left image: the linear data stretched with auto DDP and saturation SAT at 20% and the threshold SAT.TH at 0%Right image: the linear data stretched with auto DDP and saturation SAT at 20% and the threshold SAT.TH at 25%, notice that the main object and the brights stars have the same color saturation, but that the background is more neutral by having prevented the injection of saturation in the low light areas of the image.']]

It's not well formatted but I don't have so much time ... if there is someone who can script in python (3.8) the output can be improved for sure 😉

Here is the script:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import glob


for filename in glob.glob('*.class'):

    html = open(filename, encoding="ISO-8859-1").read()
    # print(filename)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html)
    table_all = soup.find_all("table")
    f = open('output.txt', 'a')
    for table in table_all:
        output_rows = []
        for table_row in table.findAll('tr'):
            columns = table_row.findAll('td')
            output_row = []
            for column in columns:
                output_row.append(column.text)
            output_rows.append(output_row)
        print(output_rows)
        f.write(str(output_rows) +'\n')

Best,
Luciano

There are now new video tutorials in the tutorial section. The written version is still worked on by Mabula.

Hi Vincent, would it be possible to include a release date for each video? Something like:

Complete LRGB Tutorial of NGC292, The Small Magellanic Cloud

04-Dec-19 : This tutorial consists of 9 parts and is a complete tutorial from loading the raw filter data to a final LRGB color image ready for publication and includes all processed data available for download.

I guess that is possible yes, might be good to see how old a tutorial is. We're also going to clean up the how-to's and guides that are outdated.

Hi,

Looking at the chats on the forum I can see that most of the problems and questions are generated by the fact, that APP does not have a decent user documentation. I myself is also in the IT business since 30 years and I can state that a good doc saves you tons of time on unnecessary customer questions. Sometimes writing the doc is more important that having tones of undocumented (and thus hidden) features. This is one important point what makes the difference between a program and a product.

Joseph

Yes, you're right and this has been delayed quite a bit unfortunately. It's a struggle sometimes if one is a sole developer on a product. However, a manual is near completion and @mabula-admin should be able to post it pretty soon, I'll ask about the status directly.

I have confidence that the functionality is there, but I really hate bumping around and guessing, so I'm waiting on doc as well.

At the risk of offending, would you mind some unsolicited (trying to be helpful) advice from retired IT architect?

* Put together a short PDF with the goal of orienting a new user to concepts and vocabulary, but does not get down into the release-specific weeds. My guess is that you already have the raw material for this, and it would be more about organizing content than creating it.

Set a content budget and scope, say... something that could be read in 10-15 minutes. It should leave the reader feeling confident about how to navigate around the product, understand how to start experimenting with their specific workflow, and how to get help with questions along the way.

Developers have a hard time writing something like this, because they know too much and it's difficult for them to put themselves in the place of the uninformed user. IMO, someone on the team who is a super-user should write this, and NOT Mabula.

Include two flowchart-style example workflows, one for DSLR and one for RGB, each with only a high level commentary. Emphasis again on concepts and vocabulary, NOT hard-to-maintain release-specific details.

Set expectations that release-specific detail will be in the tooltips and videos. Plan on updating the orientation doc only as and when some major feature change requires it.

If you do this, I will volunteer as a Beta reader. I'd have no difficulty acting as an uninformed user! 🙂

* Skip the big manual that covers everything - I do understand how hard these are to do, let alone maintain. Just let it go.

* IMO, Mabula should concentrate on keeping the tooltips current to the releases, and with good coverage and release notes. Consider a weak/bad/missing tooltip to be a bug. Do keep the vocabulary and expectations consistent with that used in the user-level overview docs.

* Cull 'help' videos that will confuse new users, because the features they reference have aged out over time.

* Short, well-edited videos are effective for demoing a feature or specific workflow, but they become less effective (for me, anyway) as they lengthen and/or try to cover wider ground. which, IMO, is why people still ask for doc, when you have all these videos... 🙂

Hope this helps...

- Bob

Fantastic advise Bob. As a senior software developer myself I wholeheartedly support your proposal. I’ll volunteer to beta-read as well and could even contribute to (a start of) a short RGB workflow as well. As a matter of fact, I could revise this workflow

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/tutorials-workflows/newbie-lrgb-processing/#post-7367

perhaps.

Wouter

I'm also in the IT "business" and gladly take part in Beta test periods.

Joseph

The full manual will be here pretty soon, as a moderator I have no insight in the exact timing unfortunately. I do know it's close to being finished. This will make APP one of the few astro-packages with a supplied, extensive manual I think, so when it's out, it'll be a plus. 🙂 I fully agree it would've been better to have a manual from the start, it's just not how things evolved. A quick tutorial is definitely a good idea, we're going to get rid of the old ones on the site and restructure that part. As Wouter already did and which I made a stickie, those kind of efforts are ofcourse highly appreciated.

when I load my lights in, and it asks to tick what channel I want it. should I just click luminance or all channels?

Best, 

Ale

@vincent-mod

Hi, just after an update on this elusive user manual.... is it arriving anytime soon ?

Thanks

Dan

@dan-archer Unfortunately I have no insight into this myself, Mabula mentioned it’s close, but he has to balance his focus on APP and the manual and since the manual is very detailed, I guess that takes this much time. Maybe Mabula can chime in @mabula-admin

This is November and still no quick user guide, even if the extensive manual is not ready. This is getting ridiculous 

This is not a direct answer to your complaint, but it might help: Charles Bracken has written a quick guide on APP and you can find it here: https://digitalstars.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/an-astropixelprocessor-quick-start-guide/

@annehouw

thanks for posting this quick guide, very helpful, better to be able to read a little compared to watching a bunch of videos.

I can recommend Charles Bracken's guide. I have been using APP for about 2 weeks after following a number of video tutorials here and elsewhere. Bracken's guide filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge because he explains what all the sliders and buttons actually do unlike in some videos where some settings seem to be chosen because of prior knowledge. Kudos to Charles.