Multi Reticule show/adjust/lock behavior problem

[lowenthalm]

The show, adjust and lock buttons behave as one would expect, except in the following case:

1 Show a reticule, adjust its position and click lock
2 Hide the reticule
3 Show the reticule

Now the reticule will have both "Adjust" and "Lock" turned on. And it seems that "Adjust" takes priority over "Lock" in this battle of control states. My, that sounds ominous.

Seems to me that it should simply become visible, and locked just as it was when I hid the control. If the control was locked when it was hidden, it should not get the adjust focus when its unhidden, as I just hid it to get it out of the way for a bit.

[admin]

Hi,

thanks for the report - definitely not quite right as I quickly got into the situation where I couldn't adjust anything (even with everything shown and not locked). I will investigate.

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello,

I wanted to repeat the problems ... it was not possible, but I maybe found other behaviour:

- start SharpCap and open the Test Camera 1 (Deep Sky)
- open Multi Reticules
- set 2 or 3 Circle reticules, change the position and size with "Adjust", then lock all
- with the "Reticules Controls" window open, I change the reticule to "Single Crosshair"
- then go back to Multi Reticules, all are still locked ... unlocked all
- but now no more possible to adjust it. The "Adjust" buttons do not activate.

It is only possible to reset the circles, not other possibilities.
The change to a different reticule does not solve the error.
Only the closing of the camera and restarting the Test Camera 1 solves the problem.

I repeated several times ... and it was possible to have the same errors without changing the reticule.
Only after opening an closing the Multi Reticules several times.

Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi Jean-Francois,

yes, I found that situation where you could be locked out of adjusting too. I also managed to get multiple reticules selected for Adjust, which shouldn't happen. I think I have a fix now - the code will now check and make sure only one item is selected for adjust after each change in show/lock status. The only way now to have nothing to adjust would be if nothing is adjustable (all hidden or locked) - if you are in that situation and you make at least one visible and unlocked then it will be selected for adjustment straight away.

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

Can you add the Multi Reticules parameters in the Capture Profiles ?

The Multi Reticules are interesting for the spectroscopy.
I used 3 instances of SharpCap with 3 cameras (finder, guider and science cameras).
The finder and the guider field of views are not perfectly centred ... so it is necessary to "mark" the centre on the finder image.
And it is necessary to "mark" the slit centre on the guider image.

It is not possible to lock the normal reticules ... I use it on the image, but a single click somewhere on the image moves the reticule.

So, it was the idea to use the Multi Reticules. But it is a pain the set/adjust the different reticules each time.
The best would be to have the parameters saved in the Capture Profiles.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

Note ... if you add the possibility to lock a normal reticule, then it would be great
And ... if the rotation of the reticule is saved (or user defined) then it would be the best.

[lowenthalm]

Note ... if you add the possibility to lock a normal reticule, then it would be great
And ... if the rotation of the reticule is saved (or user defined) then it would be the best.

I ran into that last night, losing my frame center while running a long sequence when I happened to have one of the standard cross reticules displaying. I usually use the multi reticules now since they can be locked (most of the time!). Not sure how that would be implemented interface-wise. Maybe just adding the three standard crosshair reticules (the circle is altready there) into Multi-reticule options dialog might be a simple solution that wouldn't require new interface bits being implemented in the non-multi reticule cross hair modes. Keeping the current simplicity of their operation would also being an advantage.

[admin]

Hi Jean-Francois,

right now, the way the code is organized means that reticules going into capture profiles isn't going to work nicely/easily. I expect there may be a nice solution hiding somewhere, but right now I can't quite think what it would be.

@lowenthalm,

just to be sure I'm on the right page - was it that you had moved the normal reticule to a position and then something hid it, so that on re-show it went back to the default position?

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

If I use the normal reticule for showing the location of the spectrometer slit, then any unwanted click on the image will replace the reticule at the mouse position.
That is sometime very annoying when the position was important.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[lowenthalm]

@lowenthalm,

just to be sure I'm on the right page - was it that you had moved the normal reticule to a position and then something hid it, so that on re-show it went back to the default position?

cheers,

Robin

Actually, I hid it by unchecking the visible check box. When I re-checked the visible check box, the reticule came back visible in the same spot it had been (see note on this point), but the edit radio button was now active. If I clicked to move the view around, then the reticule would move to where I clicked.

Now to the "note on this point": I think this is the only issue I was running into. However, before I realized this was the problem, I thought the reticules moving on me had something to do with switching binning modes (in live view, which am pretty much always running in). I stopped pursuing this as the possible cause of reticules moving on me once I released the edit radio button was active after unhiding a reticule. Your question above sounds as if you might have spotted other suspicious behavior with the reticules not staying put when they are locked - even without clicking in the window. This might be a red herring, so ignore it unless you've seen something similar happen.

[admin]

Hi,

I think the changes I have made to the logic are big enough that it's best to just wait for the next update and see if it behaves itself properly, rather than trying to work out if particular issues of the old code still appear in the new (hopefully not).

@Jean-Francois

how about a custom button with a bit of script to put the reticule back where it should be? Perhaps to also show the reticule too if not showing? Otherwise the 'simple' reticules need to become more complex with remembering positions and ways to set position back to default, etc.

Code: Select all

clr.AddReference("System.Drawing")
from System.Drawing import PointF
SharpCap.Reticules.SelectedReticule.FractionalPosition = PointF(0.1,0.1)

There is currently no way to set the angle via scripting, but that would be possible to add if useful.

cheers,

Robin