Automatic adjustment of focus position BEFORE the first AF run is started

According to jmacon the beta version 353 of SGP seems to run great, especially regarding Auto Focus – and that’s really fine!

@Ken
Now one important wish that has been requested by numerous users (actually it seems to be one of the most frequently wished improvement related to the topic ‘focus’) is left for the 3.1 release:

Until now we often have the situation that the last focus position of the preceding capturing session is far away from the best focus at the beginning of a new capturing session because temperature is deviating strongly. If this deviation is large enough, it will cause the AF run to fail.

PLEASE, let the user specify the complete temperature → focus position function
fp = f(T)
(see New order of sequence start events (3.1 beta) - #3 by bulrichl - Sequence Generator - Main Sequence Software for the details).

Realizing the present feature request would enable SGP to calculate the focus position that corresponds to the current temperature and set the initial focus position (directly before the first AF run is started) to this value. Thus the focus position is exceptionally set to an absolute value. After the first AF run succeeded, temperature compensation (if enabled) continues to be performed relative to the last valid result of an AF run – just as currently.

Users never again would experience a bad-centered AF run which can fail to yield a valid result.

Bernd

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@bulrichl

Yes, we absolutely intend on doing this, but it won’t be in 3.1. The code absolutely has to stabilize for release. In one frustrated post, you said you didn’t understand how something that was working is no longer working properly. This is why.

BUT! We have most of the 4.0 beta ready to go so it can come out pretty quickly after 3.1 and we will add this in as one of the first items.

@Ken this sounds great to me. Putting it in 4.0 makes a lot of sense. Getting a rock solid 3.1 out the door is the prime directive. And I think it is very close.

This is an important enhancement. I will definitely use it when it is available.

In the mean time, the latest Betas from 353 forward are successfully restoring good focus for me when I don’t make any position adjustments at the start of the session, using Smart Focus. These would never work for me historically with any prior versions. The new focus routines have made this possible. Since 353 I have deliberately started both scopes way out of focus to see if Smart Focus would work, and it does.

Adding this enhancement will not only make initial focus happen much quicker, but also much more reliably. It will allow focus to be attained regardless of how out of focus the starting point is.

Since I didn’t get any response to the content of this suggestion before, I wanted to add it to the category ‘feature requests’. I understand that you want to release 3.1 without further complication.

Thanks for taking account of it in beta 4.0.

Bernd

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