Software - Image Post Processing

BlurXTerminator

updated: 2024-03-09

Resources

Homepage: BlurXTerminator – RC Astro (rc-astro.com)


BlurXTerminator is an AI-powered deconvolution tool designed specifically for astronomical images. It is available as a plug-in process module for PixInsight only. Because deconvolution by nature requires linear image data, BlurXTerminator will not be made available for general photography applications such as Photoshop.


Not all AI is created equal. There are AI-based sharpening tools for general photography, but they were not trained with astronomical images in mind. They typically don't handle stars very well, and because they are trained as generative AI models, they have no regard for veracity and often invent details that don't exist.


The design intent of BlurXTerminator is to recover as much detail as possible based on the low-contrast information actually present in an image, without fabricating detail that does not actually exist just for the sake of making an image appear sharper. Great care has been taken in the architecture and training of the neural network to ensure that its output is as close to reality as possible when used properly.


Before

After


The image above is the result from NoiseXTerminator example and was further enhanced using the BLuxXTerminator plugin, see picture on the right.

var P = new BlurXTerminator;

P.ai_file = "BlurXTerminator.4.pb";

P.correct_only = false;

P.correct_first = false;

P.nonstellar_then_stellar = false;

P.lum_only = false;

P.sharpen_stars = 0.15;

P.adjust_halos = -0.50;

P.nonstellar_psf_diameter = 0.00;

P.auto_nonstellar_psf = true;

P.sharpen_nonstellar = 1.00;


Troubleshooting: if you get error messages like this one:


*** Error: ERROR: MLLoad() could not load tensorflow graph. 

Error 3: Converting GraphDef to Graph has failed.


then do the following (see: BlurXTerminator 2.0/AI4 error in PixInsight: MLLoad() could not load tensorflow graph – RC Astro (rc-astro.com):


This error indicates that the tensorflow.dll file in PixInsight’s installation on your computer is out of date. There are two solutions:


  • Update or re-install PixInsight, which includes a recent version of the tensorflow.dll file in its distribution.
  • Download version 2.10 of the file directly:
    • If you are using GPU acceleration, use the link provided in these instructions.
    • If you are not using GPU acceleration, download the file from the TensorFlow project using this link.
      • Unzip the download, find the tensorflow.dll file within, and place this in PixInsight’s bin directory (C:\Program Files\PixInsight\bin), overwriting the outdated version that is there.

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