31.12.2019

Tripod Beta Software Testing

54
  1. Tripod Beta Software
  2. Beta Testing Software Definition
  3. Tripod Beta Software Testing Software
  4. Tripod Beta Software Testing Center
  5. Beta Testing Program

The software are contained in the ‘Tripod-BETA Software.) 2. Background and application The Tripod theory originated from research undertaken in the late 1980s and early 1990s into the contribution of human behavioural factors in accidents. The research, by the Universiteit Leiden and the Victoria University, Manchester. Investigator 3 is a powerful incident investigation and analysis software tool. It is the only tool to combine the three best practice incident investigation and analysis methods; the Kelvin TOP-SET incident investigation methodology, the Tripod Beta incident analysis methodology and the Root Cause Analysis method. Investigator 3 guides users. With the time you save by using Tripod to build your professional-looking website, you'll have more time to spend focusing on your customers. The Powerful Addons Simply drag-and-drop photo albums, social feeds, e-commerce widgets and more to make your website interactive and unique. The Tripod Beta method is a way of conducting an incident analysis specified for high risk and complex incidents since it is a very extensive and detailed method. Training is highly recommended when using the Tripod Beta method.

Topaz AI GigaPixel review

Articles and reviews, Image Editing, Printing, Review, Software review, Topaz 6 Comments

Topaz AI GigaPixels is a new standalone software package that lets you resize images either to a specific size or up to 600%.

The full announcement info for Topaz AI Gigapixel is in a news article, but Keith was asked to have a look at a pre-release version, and has written up this short review. The Topaz info page has more examples and details.

There have been several updates which improve speed, output quality and the software interface, but all you need to know about using the software is still covered here.

  • Update: Topaz AI Gigapixel V1.1 update info
  • Update: Topaz Gigapixel AI V4 is announced
    ($20 discount to 5th April 2019)

See all of Keith’s other Topaz reviews in the Topaz article index.

Use our 15% discount code ‘Northlight’ for a specially reduced price if you buy.

Note: See update info at the foot of the article – mostly performance and UI tweaks, with better control over output quality.

Image resampling and resizing

If like me you’ve been into digital image processing for a few years, then you’ll remember that image resizing/resampling used to be a hot topic of discussion. I can recall interminable forum arguments over the best way to resize your 8MP image to print at A3+ (13″ x 19″) or larger.

As megapixel counts have risen and optical designs have advanced, the need for specialist resizing software has diminished. With images from my 50MP Canon 5Ds, creating larger (say 36″ x 24″) prints has become a lot more predictable.

However, that’s not to say I don’t welcome an addition to my re-sizing toolbox, since I still get asked for prints from photos that I took with my 11MP Canon 1Ds and my 21MP Canon 1Ds mk3.

Using the software

The software is a stand-alone application, which I’m running on an oldish Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM and a modern 3GB graphics card using OS X 10.11. I mention this since the software is very resource intensive – with big files it will slow your machine down for a bit.

Requirements

Topaz A.I. Gigapixel is available as a standalone batch processing application only. It is compatible with 64-bit Windows 7+ and Mac OS X 10.11+. It also requires a GPU with OpenGL 3.3 or later (Intel HD5000 or better, Nvidia GTX 760 or better, AMD R9 280 or better.

I’ve long thought that some of the most useful software tools are ones that do only one job, but do it exceedingly well. Topaz A.I GigaPixel shows this right from the start – it opens simply inviting me to drop files into a box.

I’ll come back to the types of files and their source in a bit, but here’s he screen after I’ve dropped two 16 bit TIFF files on the app. [click to enlarge]

Loaded files appear on the left, whilst output options appear on the right.

I can scale by a percentage. This is a linear scaling, so a 100x100px image will scale at 600% to a 600x600px image.

The enhancement option adds a bit more secret sauce to the rescaling, so as to deal with noise and other image artefacts. I’ll show examples later, but like many of these things it depends on what the image looks like and what you are doing the resizing for (print or screen).

An alternative setting lets you set an actual output size and resolution.

This output size can be in pixels or units of length.

Once again the setting for ‘enhance’ is one you may wish to explore…

File output formats are currently JPEG, TIFF and PNG, and you can choose the output colour space.

The software will process some camera RAW files, but I’d note that support for older cameras is variable, since it only saw the embedded preview files inside my old Canon 1Ds RAW files (they are .TIF).

I decided to go straight for processing a couple of photos I took on a trip to the US Pacific NW in October 2004, where I had my 11MP Canon 1Ds with me.

What files to process?

The software I’m testing currently has a 50,000 pixel maximum output size, which is pretty big. It’s nearly 14 feet wide if printed at 300 ppi.

Even so, it meant I couldn’t apply a 600% resize to my 50MP 5Ds files. Other limitations come from a physical size limit for TIFF files, and the fact that if you select JPEG, then you’re limited to 30,000 pixels max. Topaz are aware of the limits and I’m told that this is an area that may be addressed in the future. I’d note that even my 16 bit ~24k x 16k pixel results from my 1Ds files killed several plugins I looked at to further process the images for printing.

The two photos [click to enlarge] were taken early one morning at Cape Kiwanda on the Oregon coast. The sun has not long risen over the coastal mountains inland. Both are shot with my EF70-200mm F2,8L IS lens – the exact same one I recently used for all the aerial shots with my 5Ds when on a helicopter trip over my home city of Leicester.

Looking out to Haystack Rock, and along the beach towards Pacific City, Oregon.

Knowing from previous resizing tests that results are critically dependent on how you handle your RAW files, I converted each image with Adobe Camera Raw (CS6) and DxO PhotoLab V1 (review -the replacement for DxO Optics Pro).

With both packages I’ve adjusted lighting/colour etc but have turned off any sharpening or geometry correction. I’ve used a small amount of vignetting correction.

If you’re curious about other resizing experiments and large prints I’ve made, there is an article covering in depth how I created a 3m x 2m print from an 11MP 1Ds file and a detailed print based comparison of the 1Ds/1Ds3/5Ds (11/21/50MP) where I look at how much difference all those MP make at different print sizes.

Here’s the ACR adjustments.

With PhotoLab I’ve just added a bit of smart lighting, a small amount of ‘clearview’ and turned off detailed lens sharpness corrections.

As you can see, I’ve set it to save the image in Adobe98. Colour space choice is not so important in these relatively unsaturated images – it might be in other images (see ‘Printing red flowers‘ for more).

After all this I’ve four 66MB TIFF files, which I loaded into Topaz AI GigaPixel and set to enlarge by 600%

On my oldish Mac Pro, each image took around 9 minutes to process. I’m scaling from 4064 x 2704 pixels to 24384 x 16224 pixels.

Time passes and I now have 4 TIFF files, each around 2GB in size.

Some results

I should start with noting that these are tests to see how my photos could be printed at a large size to my taste…

That’s a very important thing to note, so if you really don’t like something I’ve done, then get the 30 day demo of the software from Topaz, and try it on a range of your own images – and if you’re doing it for printing, actually print them.

Much of the interminable discussion over re-sizing software in the past left me wondering if some of the people involved had ever truly made a big print or had the slightest idea of the crucial importance of sharpening at different stages of the RAW-> Print workflow. [See my article ‘Why I sharpen images‘ for more]

First, a view of the surf in front of Haystack Rock. [click to enlarge]

The three images show a 600% increase, two with Topaz AI GigaPixel and the middle one just with Photoshop’s Bicubic Smoother.

Secondly, the edge of Haystack Rock, in the same order. [click to enlarge]

The difference between RAW converters is there, but without a lot of testing I wouldn’t want to call one any better than the other.

Indeed I’ve used DxO Optics Pro (and now PhotoLab) for many years when making large prints, especially black and white, because it sometimes does make a difference.

Printing the images

I’ve produced some 16″ x 24″ prints from my files using a glossy Innova paper on an Epson P5000 17″ printer [review]. Some of you may well observe that my resized prints are near to 1000 ppi – way over the top for printing. I did print some cropped samples at 360 ppi and differences were more noticeable, but still at the level where I might need to check what’s written on the back of the print.

Here are 4 of the prints.

At normal viewing distances, the variations are not easy to see.

What variations?

Any print needs a degree of sharpening before printing. I’ve used Nik Sharpener Pro (now part of the DxO Nik collection – review) for many years and am quite experienced in judging the settings for any particular print.

One print shows the slight difference from processing with DxO (slightly different tone), but at this level of scaling the differences don’t leap out at you.

Then again, they shouldn’t, since that would suggest that more basic scaling produced bad results – it doesn’t.

Let’s look at the images at 100% after resizing by 600% and applying a bit of print sharpening [click to enlarge].

At the left is the version using Topaz AI GigaPixel and to the right after resizing with Photoshop’s Bicubic smooth.

The two images are quite different – but remember this is for a print, so don’t get too stuck on any noise differences or other subtleties that would be lost in the print process.

A big file

I mentioned the flight over my home city of Leicester in a helicopter, taking lots of 50MP photos – whilst the pre release version of the software I’m testing balks at 600% on a 50MP file, I wanted to see how it would handle the image detail.

A simple crop of the image will do. [click on images to enlarge]

Resizing at 600 still takes a few minutes.

I did the resampling twice – onece in normal and once in enhanced mode.

First a view (at 50%) showing three versions, the ones at the left and right using Topaz AI GigaPixel

Now a version at 100%, showing the original image simply magnified to 600%

The enhanced mode is good at picking out fine linear detail and removes a tendency for a fine noise pattern appearing in some areas. Once again, what’s best depends on what you want to do with the image.

Back to 2003

Just before I got my Canon 1Ds I tried out an Olympus E-20P, with the then excellent 4.9MP.

It so happens that a few of the images are ones I’ve been asked for prints of, so I looked in the archives to find the original .ORF raw files.

I processed the images in ACR with and without any sharpening. The resulting TIFF files were bumped up 400% – more than enough for 16″ x 22″ prints.

Processing was about 4 minutes per file, producing 16 bit TIFF files from 400-500MB

It wasn’t until I opened an original file at 100% and it easily fitted on the screen of my 4k 32″ monitor that I was reminded just how far we’ve come in 15 yrs.

Here’s the photo – some trees in a local park.

Here’s a comparison of the original image at 300% and the new version at 75%

It’s impressive and easily visible on an A3+ (13″ x 19″) print.

Made up detail?

In looking at the image above you can see where the software is creating plausible detail as part of its upscaling.

Take this image from a trip to Colorado (from my 11MP 1Ds) that I’ve used for making B&W prints.

There’s a lot of very fine detail in those trees.

Here’s an example of the original image enlarged (to show the actual pixels) and the result from AI Gigapixel after I’ve converted to black and white [click to enlarge].

Spend a while looking at the features in the snow and the trees on the skyline, and then look at the pixels they came from. This is far far more than simple re-sizing.

An older camera

This is a full size shot from my Olympus C1400XL – taken around 2000. It’s a 1.2 MP camera [click to enlarge]

Now, here’s a version at 400% enlargement – this is the full image so you may want to click to open in a new window or save to look at in an editor.

One of my first observations was that a lot of JPEG compression artefacts had gone in the upscaled version. Not too bad for a 1.2MP camera.

One final use…

When updating some articles on the site recently I found that the only versions of the images I wanted were 600 pixels wide, rather than the 740px that is current. A simple 200% resize followed by reducing (bicubic) back to 740px wide gave a very clean image – much crisper than simply re-sizing the original.

I don’t know how often I’m going to need this, but its a useful tool. I’d note that you could simply specify resizing to 740px, but the enlargement/reduction gave more punch to the image.

Picture is from an article about using a survey tripod for Gigapan panoramic photography

Observations

The software works very effectively and is simple to use. Remember that I’ve been testing a pre-release version with no documentation…

First up:

Be realistic – the software can’t make up for bad exposure, a cheap lens, bad lighting and bad composition

After trying a few images from the Olympus E-20P I decided that some sharpening at the RAW processing stage (~20% in ACR) produced slightly better looking enlargements. For the 1Ds and the 5Ds a small amount (a few percent) seemed to add just a bit more definition at larger sizes. This is something you’d need to test for different cameras and lenses.

Fixing chromatic aberration first made a clear improvement.

For image use on the web at high magnification, you might want to add a tiny bit of noise to your resulting images, to reduce smooth ‘painted’ effects that some flat areas can give. Once again a bit of experimentation needed, since results are critically dependent on source material.

If you regularly resize images, it’s well worth a try.

Note, if you buy the software after downloading via our link, we get a small commission – no cheaper I’m afraid, but it helps run the site. See all my other Topaz reviews in the Topaz article index.

Topaz also have a ‘making of’ blog post covering some of the background development info for the software.

Here’s a video from Topaz with their overview of the software

Updates

Topaz are committed to providing ongoing support for their software. The Beta tested here is pretty similar to the initial launch version. Do make sure to enable checking for updates since this is V1.0 software and being actively improved (both from a bug fix and algorithmic POV)

  • Topaz AI Gigapixel V1.1 update info adds CPU only processing and settings for source image noise/detail levels (free update from within software).
  • Version 2 of the software improves performance
  • A short update article shows Topaz AI GigaPixel V3, where interface design is clearer and there are some improvements in performance.
  • Version 4 increases speed and refines output quality options [Name is changed to Gigapixel AI]

Since being launched, Gigapixel has become one of my key tools for making big prints – see my article about Making big prints from low megapixel images for examples.

Technical notes

I’ve used the software on a 2010 MacBook Pro (8GB) and a 2009 Mac Pro (32GB with added 3GB AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card) It’s faster on the Mac Pro, but will use CPU if your graphics card isn’t powerful enough or supported.

There is a Hardware Requirements article on the Topaz site if you want more info (Mac and PC)

Never miss a new article or review - Sign up for our Newsletter (2-4 a month max.)

Enjoyed this article?

I believe that when you use the Sony YUV codec you are guaranteed that Vegas will be converting RGB to YUV using it's internal RGB->YUV conversion routine. Sony yuv codec youtube. I did some research awhile back with Vegas 9.0 comparing the Sony YUV codec(s) and other lossless YUV codecs like HuffyUV and Lagarith and studying the final output files with a YUV native waveform monitor.

Other areas of our site that may be of interest..

All the latest articles/reviews and photo news items appear on Keith's Photo blog

We've a whole section of the site devoted to Digital Black and White photography and printing. It covers all of Keith's specialist articles and reviews.

Categories include Colour management and Keith's camera hacks - there are over 1000 articles/reviews here..

Articles below by Keith(Google's picks for matching this page)

Testing a cooled ZWO ASI camera
Dominique Dierick·Saturday, November 7, 2015·Reading time: 10 minutes
This week I received a ZWO ASI224MC camera in test from Astromarket.be. It is one of a series of cooled CMOS camera’s ZWO is releasing shortly. The one I got is a single shot color type. This note will get updated with each test I am performing with the camera.
The cooled ZWO ASI camera’s are likely interesting for those lunar and planetary photographers who want to do casual deepsky photography without going through the expense of a second camera.
To use the active cooling element, you need a 9-15V external power source. Without this, you can still use the camera in normal mode. As with all other ZWO camera’s, there is a guider port, allowing you to use the camera as an autoguider. At least on the camera I have here, there is no camera tripod connection thread. To use it with regular camera lenses will require another way of mounting the camera on your mount or telescope.
First test obviously has to be the software compatibility exam. The camera functions fine as a regular ASI224MC type with Firecapture 2.4.12. You do need to install the latest USB 3 driver from the ZWO download area. Installing this driver removes all previous ASI drivers installed on the Windows system.
With the camera plugged into a 12V power source, the fan starts spinning, already cooling the camera to approximately 10 degrees below ambient.
If you really want it to start cooling deeply, you need to install software that can control the temperature circuitry of the camera. Which means downloading Sharpcap 2.6 from the ZWO download site or, if you prefer Firecapture, download the 2.5 64 bit beta release from the Firecapture site. After which you can really start to play with the cooled ASI.
In the above graph, the camera starts with the fan spinning, but no deep cooling activated. A few seconds later, I switched on temperature control in Firecapture, to go to -21 degrees. Somewhere half the session, I just cut the external power supply of the camera. This means, it is still recording, but there is no longer any cooling at all, not even the fan. The value quickly rises above room temperature. The deepest value I could obtain was -40 degrees below ambient, with the cooler working at 100 percent.
The camera comes with desiccant ‘pills’. According to the producer of the camera, there is no need to use them, unless the CMOS sensor starts to show frosting in low temperature over time. Replacing the desiccant requires removing the camera cover.

The Dark Frame test

Most importantly, how does the camera perform when cooled. I made a dark frame test with Firecapture, saving images in FITS format. Gain was set to 300 in Firecapture for this first series, except for the last darkframe, which was also taken with gain set to 0.
First let’s look at uncooled results at room temperature (20C). A full image to see the amp glow, and a crop to see the noise. Click on the image to see a larger version.

As you can hopefully see, the result is a lot better once the cooling is activated. There is far less noise, and also the amp glow is seriously reduced. The results are even more spectacular looking on the raw images in Photoshop. I stretched it a bit more and put the crops side by side to see:
But how does it look with longer exposures? Well, here is one of 300 seconds, cooled and stretched to the same level as the comparison above.
Finally, here is the same result at 300 seconds and gain set to 0.,

Tripod Beta Software

Up to the next test: under the stars. But there, I’ll need some cooperation from the weather.

Update: first starlight (be it very briefly)

Obviously, the clouds are there, as it happens each time a new piece of equipment arrives. I did get a couple of minutes with less cloud cover. Just enough to find, focus and take a 60 second exposure of M45. Just one. I had the sensor at -21 degrees and the gain at 300.
The image above is not calibrated, just using some DDP and background color correction. The blue haze to the right and bottom of the image is strong amp glow.
Next, I took a series of 20 darks, just to have them handy already. When subtracted from the raw light image, this is the result (after similar DDP and color correction). The amp glow and vertical banding is subdued at the expense of extra noise on this single frame image.
A second try, with a larger break in the clouds got this as a result. 10 x 60s, calibrated with dark frames only.

Update: Recommended gain settings from ZWO

I received some recommended gain settings from Sam of ZWO. He distinguishes between three types of imaging:
  • Lucky imaging
    As the read noise of the 224 is very low, one can use very short exposure to capture DSO and stack hundreds or thousand of them. This is not new for cooled camera’s, it works very well with the uncooled ones too. This type imaging usually offers the best resolution and no guiding is needed. The recommended gain setting is 350.
  • Unity Gain
    Unity Gain can provide the best resolution of the 12bit ADC, the full well capacity will be around 4096e. Recommended gain setting is 135, exposure depends on the presence of light pollution.
  • Best Dynamic Range
    The best dynamic range in one single frame is obtained with gain setting 0. Guiding will be needed, as exposure must usually go beyond 3 to 5 minutes per frame.

Update: Request from high-res photographer John Sussenbach

John Sussenbach (the Netherlands) asked me if I could do a simple test to check whether cooling would make any difference in high gain planetary photography (e.g. for the outer planets). He suggested me to take a few images at 1/20s and gain 475, with and without cooling on.
I didn’t expect a huge difference, but did give it a try. First I let the camera ‘warm up’ for half an hour, typically what is going on in a planetary photography session (one focuses, makes many sequences, heat building up in the camera). Next I took a series of images and switched on the cooling. The camera came down to -25C from +17C. I repeated the sequence of images. As expected I did not see any significant difference that close to bias values. The amp glow however, was subdued by the cooling.
The image below is stretched to the extreme to make the noise stand out.

Update with more images and conclusion

Last night finally offered an opportunity to test the camera under good skies (in terms of clear skies, light pollution unfortunately remains). I did some experiments with different gain settings. These do confirm what Sam of ZWO mentioned earlier. The best dynamic range you get with gain = 0, but it requires long exposure per frame. If you don’t want to make such long exposures (e.g. unguided tracking, less than perfect guiding systems), I found a gain value of 250 a good compromise between dynamic range and speed.
The images below don’t do the camera 100 percent justice. As mentioned, I am imaging from severely light polluted skies, and rather unfortunate, none of the connection pieces I have for my Takahashi Epsilon allowed me to install the 48mm IDAS LPS filter in between the corrector and the camera.

Beta Testing Software Definition

All raw images were processed in Nebulosity 4, which did a very good job in rendering the colors after a background offset neutralization. The latest release of Nebulosity supports ZWO camera’s so it could provide a very budget friendly solution for capturing and processing the images of this camera. Final processing done in PS CC. Capturing was done with Firecapture 2.5 beta release setting the camera temperature to -25C. No noise reduction was applied to the processed images.

Tripod Beta Software Testing Software

Initial conclusion

Tripod Beta Software Testing Center

The cooled version of the ASI224MC definitely adds a bonus for those photographers who focus on planetary imaging and want to do casual deepsky photography with their equipment. It will definitely also charm those amateurs who do not want to invest in a dedicated deepsky camera and get a planetary camera at the same time.

Beta Testing Program

Amateurs desiring a larger sensor may want to have a look at the ASI174MM cooled camera. I did not have that one for testing, but from my uncooled version of the camera, I expect at least the same standards as above, and it’s a wonderful camera for high resolution lunar photography at the same time. Feel free to check out my images with it published on Flickr.
d3nho.netlify.com – 2018