Using Combine ZM

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:24 pm

I'm trying my first stack, using Combine ZM (I don't know if I want to spend money on this till I know I can make it work!). So far the program has been a struggle to use. I wasted all evening because the tracking message said (from memory here) "generating filters, please be patient", so I assumed something was being done and let the computer sit for five hours. I used Windows to check that there was no CPU activity, and nothing was happening. FOund "do stack" in menus, and there was a burst of CPU activity, and some messages that sounded like reasonable progress was being made. Now there has been no CPU activity for about half an hour, and I suspect that I'm out of memory or something. I have this message in the progress tracker:

*** Finished Executing Do Stack Macro ***

* Please wait while Picture is redrawn

Load Frame(s)

Interpolated Output

Interpolated Output

Free Memory used by Filters

Can anyone tell me what I need to do next to move this along? Exploring the menus and trying some options doesn't seem to help. I shouldn't complain about something free, but so far I find this intensely frustrating with zero result....

The only image I can see is a blurry mess that I believe is the last frame I took in the stack (with a bit of the bg in focus).

If it matters, this is a stack of 13 frames.

puzzledpaul · Post by **puzzledpaul** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:32 am

Rik is obviously the guy who can offer directed, practical help here as (iirc) he's been involved with this app and its developers ... but on a general note ...

<< I shouldn't complain about something free >>

... I'd tend to disagree, as this is how such (open source / free) progs become better / stonger.

Depends how feedback is done, of course (and whether the developers want to listen:)) but the app I've been associated with for nearly 6 yrs certainly wouldn't be as strong / capable as it is without constructive user f/back

pp

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:07 am

Well, this is an interesting problem that I've not heard of before.

Mike, some specifics please... How large are your images (pixels) and what file type (JPEG?)? What type of computer are you running this on (make/model), what operating system (Windows XP?), and how much memory does it have? Finally, what version of CombineZM are you using? (Ask its Help | About CombineZM.)

Normal behavior is that when you File | New* and select images, the progress dialog will pop up with something like this:

Load Frame(s)
Pixel Format 21808
Filter Initializeation (Please be patient)
(0) 0001_IMG_2685
(1) 0001_IMG_2684
(2) 0001_IMG_2683
(3) 0001_IMG_2682
(4) 0001_IMG_2681
(5) 0001_IMG_2680
(6) 0001_IMG_2679
(7) 0001_IMG_2678
(8 ) 0001_IMG_2677
(9) 0001_IMG_2676
(10) 0001_IMG_2675
(11) 0001_IMG_2674
(12) 0001_IMG_2673
*Set Undo Point for Quick Undo

Then the progress dialog will disappear and you'll be left back at the main CombineZM window showing one of your source images.

The part about "Filter Initializeation" goes slowly the first time each different image size is seen, but it should never take very long. I just now tested at 4000x2668 and that step completed in 22 seconds. (BTW, I have no idea what that step is doing. It's never been important enough to investigate.)

Then when you select Macro | Do Stack, the progress dialog gradually fills in with something like this:

*** Executing Do Stack Macro *** (Main Window Hidden)
Select All
Normal Filter Output
Balance Colour and Brightness (Global)
Align all Frames Automatically (Two pass)
First Pass
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2684 with 0001_IMG_2685
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0026
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2683 with 0001_IMG_2684
....
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2674 with 0001_IMG_2675
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0019
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2673 with 0001_IMG_2674
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0019
Shift and Scale Using Average factor=1.0020
Second Pass
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2684 with 0001_IMG_2685
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0000
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2683 with 0001_IMG_2684
....
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2674 with 0001_IMG_2675
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0000
Compare Frame 0001_IMG_2673 with 0001_IMG_2674
xoffset=0 yoffset=0 scale=1.0000
Final Shift and Scale
*** No further changes were made to any Frame ***
Find Detail(25)
Remove Islands(5)
Fill Gaps
Normal Filter Output
Create a Lowpass Filter(250,0)
Filter Depth Map
Copy Last Filter Output to Depthmap
Interpolated Output
Create New Frame
(13) New-Out99999
Go to Top Frame(13)
Create a Highpass Filter(1000,750)
Filter Active Frame
Replace New-Out99999
With out
Adjust Contrast(5)
Replace New-Out99999
With out
*** Finished Executing Do Stack Macro ***
* Please wait while Picture is redrawn

Then the progress dialog will disappear, leaving you back at the main window, with the combined image showing. The other (source) images can be accessed with the up/down arrow keys, or with View | Go to Frame (F3).

In the test case that I just ran (13 images at 3072x2048), the Do Stack macro ran in 3 minutes and 2 seconds. That's on a roughly three year old, single processor, single core, 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of memory, working on an ordinary 7200 rpm disk.

Oh, wait -- maybe that's your problem. If you try pointing CombineZM directly at a camera memory card, then it'll probably run really Really slow because it beats on scratch files that go in the same directory as your source images. For the little test run I just did, Windows Task Manager shows right at 600 MB read and 400 MB written. As you can imagine, it's not a good idea running against a slow "disk" like a CF card in a USB adapter. Copy your source images to hard disk before running CombineZM.

As to moving forward, once you get the composite image on the screen, all you have to do is save it. Saved images tend to have some strange mirrored borders that need to be cropped off. (There's some exact sequence of operations in CombineZM that keeps the borders from being saved in the first place, but I never remember what it is. I have no idea why the borders are there, either.)

I don't consider CombineZM to be nearly as user-friendly as Helicon Focus, but it's normally not antagonistic either, and I'm not sure what you've done to get on its bad side.

Be sure to copy images to your hard disk, try again, and let me know what happens.

--Rik

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:16 pm

Rik, thanks for the detailed response. I ended up getting another batch of photos, and my first effort was a step towards success, anyway. It's in the macro forum now.

I received the following message when first loading the images:

At least one data sampling is missing. Data collection is taking longer than expected. You might avoid this message by increasing the sample interval.

This message will not be shown again in this session.

I assume that they actually mean "decreasing the sample interval" and taking more shots?

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:50 pm

That sounds more like a message that comes out of some image acquisition library, like CombineZM thought it was trying to capture a movie and things were going too slow.

I can't recall getting that one from CombineZM, though I often get such messages from performance monitoring software.

If it's at all repeatable, I'd suspect that it's an interaction with some other software that happens to be installed on your system. You don't happen to have any image capture devices installed, do you?

I'd be very surprised (read, "shocked") if CombineZM was smart enough to look at a collection of still frames and figure out that they weren't spaced closely enough.

--Rik