Problem installing version 1.8

[muletopia]

For some time I have I have used the Linux 64 star tools from the 1.6 and 1.7 distros.
I was tempted by the Star Tools 1.8 promotional video so I down loaded this version.


The Linux64 entry in the disto directory is not functional in any of my Ubuntu partitions, all of which happily run versions 1.6 and 1.7


Any thoughts would be appreciated.


Chris

[admin]

Hi Chris,

Would you be able to elaborate on "not functional"?
Are you able to launch the application from the command line? Have you confirmed the executable(s) have execution permissions set; e.g. something like 'chmod +x StarTools-Linux64-GPU' should do the trick.
Which version(s) of Ubuntu have you tried? Are they still supported?

Thank you,

[muletopia]

Hello Ivo,

The version of Ubuntu is 20.04 LTS, (also 18.04)

In the distro directory version 1,8 both StarTools-Linux64 and StarTools-Linux64-GPU have -rwxrwxrwx properties so chmod not required
This is also the case in the 1.7 distro

In the 1.8 distro the command
sudo StarTools-Linux64 produces the response "command not found"

So I asked for the property of the file (GUI) in the 1.8 distro and received "shared library application".
In the 1.6 and 1.7 distros the property returned is "executable (application)'"

Perhaps a clue,

Chris

[admin]

Thanks Chris,

A couple of things;

• You should never launch applications as super user ('sudo') unless you specifically need to give an application access to your entire system (StarTools is not one of those applications!)
• If an application is not in your known paths, then launching it by just typing its name is not going to work.
  Instead you will have (assuming you are in the right folder) to launch it with

  Code: Select all

  ./StarTools-Linux64-GPU

Hope that helps!

[muletopia]

Thanks Ivo,
./StarTools-Linux64-GPU gives a very brief black screen.
./StarTools-Linux64 does indeed launch the program.

Perhaps I should have said the that neither of the two entries show the usual exe icon, they just show as files.
It does seem bothersome that a terminal window needs to be opened, .bashrc sourced and cd to the disto directory is required.

A mild guess is the files desktop properties are not set.

Chris

[admin]

Thanks Chris,

./StarTools-Linux64-GPU gives a very brief black screen.

Depending on your system, it may be worthwhile locating some drivers that support OpenCL, so that you can avail of GPU acceleration.

Perhaps I should have said the that neither of the two entries show the usual exe icon, they just show as files.
It does seem bothersome that a terminal window needs to be opened, .bashrc sourced and cd to the disto directory is required.

You should be able to create a simple script that automates these steps for launching StarTools via an icon on, for example, your desktop.

The misidentification of some executables as "shared libraries" by libmagic (used by many file managers on various linux distros) has been a long standing issue. It has now been fixed and should be rolled out into new distros soon. Until then, there is sadly not much I can do about that as a developer of an application.

[muletopia]

Hello Ivo,
Easily done

Scrip for Desktop called runStarTools

cd ~
./.source ./.bashrc
cd /media/chris/bigdisc/astro/distro
./StarTools-Linux64

and desktop file in distro

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon[en_AU]=/home/chris/mewlon.jpg
Name[en_AU]=StarTools
Exec=/home/chris/Desktop/runStarTools
Name=StarTools
Icon=/home/chris/mewlon.jpg


Chris

[admin]

[muletopia]

Hello Ivo,
At the suggestion of Startrek (Martin) I post this (from Iceinspace):-
*****************************************************************************************************
Martin,
Ivo did pile in with what became a conversation, if you look on the StarTools forum you will see the discourse. Prompt and attentive support.
I don't know how old your 1.7 license is but mine was recent enough to just copy the password from my 1.7 and past into the 1.8 and it proceeded to save results.
Opnion:- it is a big advance from 1.7 to 1.8 , a new masking option and the colour module is certainly better.


In general Star tools is very sensitive to noise and I find it needs a very smooth image to start with. 80 minutes on the great barred spiral galaxy is not enough from my OSC QHY gain 0 offset 125 camera.
The same stacked and debayered image processed with Nebulosity 4 gives a fair result.


Chris
Thanks Chris
Ivo would be most interested in your comparison ( Startools and Nebulosity)
Worth posting the data for his comments
Cheers
Martin
Yes 1.8 has more features especially for NB accents
I’ll be updating shortly
*********************************************************************************************************



Ivo, the unprocessed and debayered stack is a 40.5 meg file so I have not posted it as Martin suggests

Chris

[admin]

Hi Chris,

Always happy to have a look at any dataset you may be having trouble with.
Popular ways to share datasets are WeTransfer, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.
Just provide a link to the publicly available dataset and we can take it from there.

StarTools is the only application (that I am aware of) that is noise-aware at all times.
In that sense it definitely hyper sensitive to noise, but in a useful and conscious way.

As a result, it requires a much less pristine dataset to be able to still perform advanced manipulations like deconvolution, HDR optimisation, wavelet sharpening, etc. Not to mention the perfectly targeted noise reduction - again - thanks to the awareness of noise levels as they changed per-pixel during your processing.

So if you are suggesting StarTools somehow requires a better signal to be useful than, say, Nebulosity, then something is going very, very wrong...