Support for XISF file format?

[rpauli]

Hello all,

Pleiades Software (https://pixinsight.com/about/index.html) as the developer of the Pixinsight software further developed the well-known FITS file format, used ubiquitously in astrophotography, into the XISF format. They came up with this new format and now use it extensively in their software (which is the arguably the most extensive software for processing of astrophotos). Some other products start to support this natively now as well (eg "NINA", see https://nighttime-imaging.eu/docs/maste ... mats/xisf/).

Are there any plans for xnview to eventually support the XISF format as well? The format is documented here: https://pixinsight.com/xisf/

Thanks and best regard, Reto

[herb]

Hello rpauli

Where can we download such an example file?
Can you uplaod a sample that contains metadata.

I am interested in the metadata contained inside an XISF image.

Best regards
herb

[rpauli]

Good evening herb

Thanks for the reply, I put together a small (in terms of number of files, not number of GBs) collection on a shared onedrive folder here:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AkeTpI3f4zlKgegjBci7KlD4WMzKFA

All those pictures show more or less the same thing and are from the same imaging session (Soul Nebula), but from different processing steps or with different file format options. Specifically:

• "mono linear uncompressed.xisf": This is the basic file. It's monochrome (only one color channel, therefore grey levels), in its linear state and uncompressed. Being linear means that if you look at it, you might visually just see some of the brightest stars peeking out. It would need some strong pushing through ie histogram levels to show its finer details. But it is representative of what comes typically out of image integration at the end of the pre-processing (including stacking, calibration and so on).

• "mono linear compressed zblib.xisf": Same as above, but saved with the zlib compression option.

• "color non-linear compressed zstandard.xisf": After merging three b/w channels, processing and pushing the levels (aka as "stretching") a more viewable picture in RGB resulted. Thanks to the levels-pushing its state is now no longer linear, hence the filename. Additionally saved with a different compression method to illustrate.

• For those three pictures above I've also produced FITS files for comparison. While the compression indication in the filename is now obviously wrong I still kept it but added "equivalence" to the file name - all to show which .xisf picture it should be compared to.

Does this help? If you need more, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks and cheers, Reto

[rpauli]

Update: I added TIFF files with the same equivalent filename to show which .xisf they were saved from, even if the name itself (ie on compression) is a bit misleading. All the TIFFs are in fact uncompressed and there's one each in 16bit integer per channel and 32bit floating point per channel.

[xnview]

See issue for current status and some details.

[rpauli]

Terrific! Thank you for the quick action and looking forward to install 1.6.

[xnview]

This problem is supposed to be fixed in XnView MP 1.6.0. Please check and confirm the bug fix here.

[rpauli]

Just tried it out in version 1.6.0 / libformat 7.164 on MacOSX. The change log ("What's new") says it should be in.
However, I don't manage to get anything out of any .xisf file. I verified to have all file formats checked, tried to see a preview / open a .xisf - all to no avail. In the browser all .xisf show up with the icon of the Pixinsight software, so there seems to be no decoding going on. Anything I'm missing or should do?

[user0]

160, win11, no Pixinsight installed
XnViewMP's Browser shows XISF thumbnail and opens it in Viewer without issues

[xnview]

Just tried it out in version 1.6.0 / libformat 7.164 on MacOSX. The change log ("What's new") says it should be in.
However, I don't manage to get anything out of any .xisf file. I verified to have all file formats checked, tried to see a preview / open a .xisf - all to no avail. In the browser all .xisf show up with the icon of the Pixinsight software, so there seems to be no decoding going on. Anything I'm missing or should do?

Currently there is only a Windows x64 plugin, the project (PCL) is not yet compatible with ARM64

[rpauli]

Ah - now tried it on Windows and it works as far as I can see! Thanks a lot!