Official Request for Improved Autofocus in SGP

#81

Also, SGP developers have been working pretty hard to make FLI camera owners happy especially for KAF-16200 and KAF-16803 CCDs. Not many vendors support this many cameras like SGP does. I believe FLI camera owners have been asking SGP developers to add more support for FLI cameras especially for RBI mitigation and SGP listened and implemented.

It’s not the customers’ job to tell SGP developers to set the priority of how and when SGP developers want to implement their software. If you want to bash at SGP, go buy a different software.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with SGP’s AF routine. Yes, there’s always room for improvement. There’s a saying “Good enough software is never good enough”. Once SGP has finally finish their higher priority implementation of their software, they may go back to AF routine and see if it further needs improvements.

Peter

#82

What?!! I come back to see this thread is going the wrong direction, can the people who have no issue with Autofocus just refrain from making drive by comments that are not really adding to the request. The developers do not need any help defending, they are free to do whatever with what we observe and like to be enhanced …
Again, I have about 5 different setups some work beautifully with nice V - Curves and some not, even after all the tricks in the book … as do some other here in this thread. I changed everything, from gain to iso to binned and not binned, changed camera’s used all kind of filters, different step sizes, pin point etc etc etc … so I would welcome enhancements in the focus department.
I for one and I know I’m not alone are looking into other softwares just because and solely because of the AF routine … It’s also the one reason I did not update, I would in an instant if progress was made on the AF routine …
I even looked at implementing sharp lock but that seems impossible for the setups in question …

#83

I recall the last time that the SGP focus algorithms were tweaked (about 2 year’s ago?) the developers asked for focus packs, in which we share a set of images to test algorithms on. I think it is one of the options in the settings.
That might be a good place to start, especially for those who have setups that stubbornly refuse to cooperate. We are probably in 80/20 territory and the remaining 20 are going to have to provide more information, other than ‘it doesn’t work’, to the developers.

#84

I could provide focus packs. I assume these would have to show stars at various levels of defocus, as you move through the curve? Should be pretty strait forward to generate something like that and upload it.

#85

Jon - I will have to check when I get home but last time, Jared and Ken asked for packs with which to develop the HFD algorithms. I think there is an option in the focus settings that automatically save the images to their own directory.

#86

Some sort of information is essential. If the developers don’t know what the problem is there’s nothing they can do. Just complaining that it doesn’t work won’t achieve much.

I think that people who don’t need this have a point of view. They are also entitled to support and there is a significant amount of work needed even to find out what the problem really is and to research solutions. You can’t expect Ken and Jared to drp everything to concentrate on this.

#87

Exactly - what would be most useful are the cases where SGP algorithm fails but a different application succeeds. One of the outcomes may not necessarily be an application change, but revisions to best practices in regard to V-curve range, binning, exposure and so on.

#88

Later this week we seem to have some clear sky, I shall create some focus packs if the weather holds up …

#89

Kudos to Jon for starting this thread. You have my vote for auto-focus being the most important area of SGP to improve upon. I have been using SGP for years. Really like it and I gladly upgraded to version 3 to show my support.

I have two setups that I use SGP and auto-focus on. For my FSQ-106 it works reasonably well. For my 200mm Canon lens with belt driven focus solution from Starlight Instruments it works better than I expected but still fails to give me a good focus occasionally. With the tight focus tolerance of the camera lens and backlash in the belt driven system, it would be a good use case for focus data. If the clouds ever clear here on the Texas Gulf coast, I will try to get some data.

#90

Tim,

I dont need help tweaking settings, thanks for the offer though. I need the method to work better.

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