VrOne
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ON-LINE REFERENCE DOCUMENTATION CARDINAL SYSTEMS, LLC 386-439-2525 |
IMAGE UTILITY (imageutil.exe) |
Type: Stand-alone Application
Current Release: 2.51
Various image utility functions.
Image utility contains many useful functions for dealing with images, and should be the starting point before using VrTwo Orientation, VrOrtho, or VrAt. Image utility provides the following main features:
· Image settings management (assigning camera settings, strip locations, and name formats)
· Inner Orientation in manual and automatic modes.
· Camera file creation and editing.
· Batch image rotations in 90 degree intervals.
· Batch image pyramid creation.
· Batch image format conversion.
· Image Pixel size computation.
ImageUtil will start by opening the Main Window and the Image Viewer Window.
Starting an Application (Command)
Pulling down a menu and selecting an item may start commands. Commands may also be started from a key-in using the command name. Each command name is the first three letters of the first two words on the pull down. For example: The command name for Convert Images is ConIma. If this rule is not followed the key-in is listed after the command in parenthesis.
The Main Window
The Main Window in Image Utility contains the command pull down menus, a key-in area, two information areas, a progress bar and the coordinate display.
Commands names may be typed into the key-in area at almost any time.
On the border of the Main Window is shown the
active project name.
The Image Viewer Window
The image viewer window provides a quick way to view any image in the current project. Directly below the image, a drop-down box contains a list of all of the images in the current project. Selecting any image from the list will cause it to be displayed. In addition to the view control icons located at the bottom of the image preview window, the standard VrOne zoom keys (PgDn, PgUp, Home, etc.) may also be used to change the view of the current image.
The image viewer window may be closed ay any time by selecting the close icon in the upper right corner. It may be opened again by selecting the File->Open Image Viewer command.
Overview
Some of the Image Utility features require a project to be
defined, while others are miscellaneous utilities that work without a project
being defined. A project in Image Utility is just a list of images and camera
files. All of the commands under the
Inner Orientation pull-down, and the Edit Project command under the Project
pull-down, require a project to be defined. None of the commands under the
Misc. pull-down menu require a project to be defined.
Image Utility should be the first program used when setting
up a new job for VrOrtho, VrAt, or VrTwo Orientation. For example, a typical
workflow for creating an ortho photo may look as follows:
1. Obtain
raw images.
2. Run
Image Utility.
3. If no
camera file exists for images, create a camera definition file using
Camera->New Camera.
4. Create
a new Image Utility project using Project->New Project. The project editor
dialog should be displayed.
5. Add
the camera definition file to the list of project cameras.
6. Add
all images to the project and define the correct strip location, pixel size,
and image name format for each image. NOTE: Image name format is only important
if using VrAt.
7. Perform
inner orientation on all images using Inner Orientation->Automatic or Inner
Orientation->Single Image commands. NOTE: At least one image per strip
location must be measured manually before using Automatic mode.
8. Run
VrOrtho.
9. Create
a new project.
10. Define
standard VrOrtho project parameters and import the Image Utility project file.
VrOrtho will recognize the image settings and inner orientations completed using
Image Utility.
11. Define
ortho areas for the Images.
12. Create
ortho output images.
File Menu
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Open Image Viewer
Open the Image Viewer window
if it has been closed.
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Exit
Exits Image Utility
Camera Menu
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New Camera
Display a dialog box that
allows a new camera definition file to be created. A dialog box will be shown
so the camera settings can be edited.
The Edit Radial Distortion
button will display the following dialog.
All information about the
camera being defined should be entered here. Each image will be assigned to a
camera file.
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Edit Camera
Display a dialog box that
allows a camera definition file to be selected. A dialog box will be shown so
the camera settings can be edited. (See New Camera for details)
Project Menu
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New Project
Display a dialog box that
allows a new project file to be created. A dialog box will be shown so the
project settings can be edited.
Dialog Features
The dialog allows all images
to be added to the project and to be defined. Pressing the “Add Photos” button
will display a dialog that allows one or more images to be selected and added
to the project. Pressing the “Delete Photos” button will delete all currently
highlighted photos. Pressing the “Hide Folders” button will hide the folder
locations of the image names and camera names. The “Hide Folders” button will
change to “Show Folders” when pressed, and then can be used to display the
folder locations again.
In order to define a setting
for all images, set the appropriate value and then press the “Apply To All”
button next to the setting. In order to define a setting for individual images,
highlight the images first, then press the “Apply” next to the setting. The
currently defined settings are applied to new photos as they are added to the
project.
Project cameras –
Multiple cameras may be defined for a project. Use the “Add” button to add
cameras to the project (the camera definition file must already exists). Use
the “Delete” button to remove the currently highlighted camera from the
project.
Film strip location – The
image film\e strip location can be set to Left, Right, Top, or Bottom.
Photo pixel size (mm) –
This setting is the pixel size in millimeters for the image.
Photo Name Separator
Character, Strip Chars, Photo Chars – These three settings define
how the image name is interpreted to produce a Strip and Photo number. These
setting are only useful if using VrAt.
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Open Project
Display a dialog box that
allows an existing project file to be opened. If a project is already open it
will be closed before the new one is opened.
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Edit Project
A dialog box will be shown so
the project settings can be edited. See New Project command for details.
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Change Project Location
This option is used to change
the project file locations when the project files are moved from one directory
or drive to another. A file open dialog will be displayed where an existing
Image Utility project file can be selected. Once the file is selected the
following dialog is displayed.
Enter the new directory
locations for the project images and cameras and press the OK button. If the
directory locations were entered correctly, the project should now open without
any problems.
Inner Orientation Menu
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Automatic
Displays the following dialog
box that allows automatic inner orientation to be performed on images in the
current project.
Dialog Features
The dialog displays all images
in the current project in a table format, with one image per row. Each row
displays the image name, total RMS value, and the fiducials numbered from 1 to
8.
If a fiducial has been
measured it will show the fiducial image with a green x indicating the measured
location, or it will show the RMS x and y error values, depending on the
viewing settings. If a fiducial has not been measured it will display “Not
Measured” if there is a template available for the fiducial, or “No Template”
if no template has been created. Templates are created automatically by doing a
manual inner orientation on one image.
If an image has been measured,
the total RMS will be displayed to the left of the fiducial display. This
number will be colored red if the RMS exceeds the Maximum allows RMS value
setting. (See Settings…
below)
The filter entry may be used
to control which images are displayed. For example, a filter of 01* would only
show images that start with the characters “01”.
Pressing the “Begin Auto
Measurement” button will begin measurement of all images that are currently
selected. There are several ways to select images.
1. Single
click on the check box beside an image name will check and uncheck that image.
2. Single
click on the image name will highlight the image. Highlighting a single image,
then shift-clicking on another image name will select a range of image.
Ctrl-clicking on an image name will toggle the highlighting of that image. Once
the image are highlighted, they can be selected using the “Select Highlighted”
button.
3. The
“Select All” button may be used to check all images.
Once measurement has started,
the fiducial display areas will be updated as the measurements are taken. All
measurements will be recorded to the vrautoinner.log file.
The display of fiducial images
may be shown at different scales using the Display Scale drop-down. 1.0x, 2.0x,
4.0x, and 8.0x are available.
Pressing the “View Log” button
will display the measurement reporting log file using the Windows Notepad
program.
Settings…
Pressing the “Settings…”
button displays the following dialog.
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Maximum allowed RMS
value |
Any RMS values that are
above this value will be displayed in red. They may also be flagged in the
report file depending on the Reporting Mode option. |
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RMS Reporting Mode |
This can be set to one of
three values:
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Log file maximum size
(bytes) |
Any time fiducials are
measured, the results are written to a log file in the project directory.
This file is named vrautoinner.log. In order to keep the file from growing to
an unreasonable size, you can specify the largest file size allowed. If the
log file goes beyond this size, it will be renamed to vrautoinnerlast.log,
and a new vrautoinner.log will be started. |
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Fiducial Display Mode |
This can be set to “Images”
or “RMS Values”. On large jobs, using RMS Values can make it easier to scroll
through the image table. |
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Single
Displays the following dialog
box that allows a single image to be selected for manual inner orientation to
be performed on images in the current project.
After an image is selected, the
single image inner orientation application is displayed. Either the display
icons or standard VrOne zoom keys (PgUp, PgDn, Direction Arrows) can be used to
find and measure each fiducial. Single image inner orientation displays three
windows – The Status Window, the Overview Window, and the Measurement Window
The Status Window
The Status Window displays the name of the image being measured, and a table of all fiducial measurements.
The row for the fiducial currently being measured will be highlighted. Clicking on any row in the table will make that fiducial current, and will cause the measurement window to zoom to that fiducial.
Edit Camera… - This will display a dialog box that allows the current camera definition to be edited.
Advance after measurement – If this is checked, then measuring a fiducial will cause the next highest fiducial number to become current. The measurement window will zoom to the next fiducial.
Clear Fiducial – This will set the x and y location for the currently highlighted fiducial to 0.0. This will remove the fiducial from the inner orientation process.
Clear Measurement – This will clear the measurement for the currently highlighted fiducial.
Total RMS Error – This displays the Total RMS Error based on the currently measured fiducials. This is updated real-time.
The Measurement Window
The Measurement window is where the fiducial measurements are taken. A fiducial is measured by placing the cross hairs over the center of the fiducial and clicking the left mouse button. If a fiducial has already been measured, a cross and a number will be displayed indicating the measurement location and the fiducial number that was measured.
The Overview Window
The Overview window shows the entire image along with fiducial number labels. You can move the square zoom cursor around in the overview window, and then press the left mouse button to make the measurement window zoom to the region beneath the cursor. The Page Up and Page Down keys can be used to change the size of the zoom window.
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Clear
Displays the following dialog
box where inner orientation on one or more images in the current project can be
cleared.
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Clear fiducial templates
Displays the following dialog
box where fiducial templates can be cleared for each photo strip location.
Image Utility maintains one set of fiducial templates for each image strip
location per project directory. In order to replace the templates for a
particular image strip, they must be cleared with this option, and then one
image must be manually measured.
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Recreate fiducial templates
Displays the following dialog
box that allows a single image that has already been measured to be used to
recreate fiducial templates. Once the image is selected, the fiducial templates
will be created using the measurements that were taken on the fiducials for
that image. This is useful if you have changed the fiducial template size in
the camera definition file, and would like new templates to be created without
re-measuring any fiducials.
Misc. Menu
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Compute Pixel Size
Displays the following dialog
box that allows an image to be selected and a Photo size to be entered. When
the OK button is pressed, the second dialog is displayed which shows the
calculated pixel size based on the dimension entered and the actual pixels in
the image.
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Rotate Images
Rotate images will take a
group of images and rotate each one either 90, 180, or 270 degrees. Rotation
parameters are entered first in the following dialog.
Output compression quality is only used if the input image is a JPEG file
Rotation – Options are 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
Color
Mode – The options are:
“Same
as original” – The output image will use the same color mode as the input
image.
“Greyscale”
– The output image will use Greyscale color mode.
"RGB” – The
output image will use RGB color mode.
“YCbCr” – The
output image will use YCbCr color mode.
Output
compression quality – If the input image is
compressed, then this setting will control the compression quality of the
output image. A value from 1-100 may be used, with higher numbers equaling
higher quality, but less compression. If 0 is entered, then output images will
be written uncompressed. NOTE: It
is recommended that rotations be performed on original uncompressed images.
Rotations on compressed images involve uncompressing and recompressing the
image, resulting in some image quality loss.
After
pressing OK, the following dialog is displayed.
Use
this dialog to select all images that you want to be rotated. The images will
be written back to the original file, so it is recommended that you always have
a backup before running this routine.
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Apply Levels Adjustment
Applies levels adjustment to a
group of images. A single levels adjustment file may be applied to all of the
images, or separate levels files may be auto applied to each image. Parameters
are entered first in the following dialog.
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Output directory |
The output directory for the
new images. If this is left blank, then the output directory is the same as
the input image directory. |
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Output prefix |
The output prefix to prepend
to each image name. The string entered here will be prepended to all output image
names. |
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Output postfix |
The output postfix to append
to each image name. The string entered here will be appended to all output
image names. |
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Levels File |
Level adjustment parameters
will be taken from this file. This may be either a Photoshop .alv file saved
from the Levels adjustment dialog, or it may be a .lvl file produced by VrOne
or GIMP. This can be left blank if the “Auto-Apply levels files” is on. |
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Auto-apply levels
files |
If this is on, and an image has
a matching .lvl file then it will be used when applying the levels adjustment
(overriding the Levels file entered above). The .lvl must have the same base
filename as the image, and must be in the same directory as the image. |
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Translate if no
adjustment |
If this is on, then the
files will be translated even if the levels adjustment results in no changed
to the image. This may be useful if you are using the Auto-apply option and
some images have adjustment files and some don’t, but you want all image to
be copied to the output directory. |
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Convert Images
Convert Images will take a
group of images and convert to a different format or name. Parameters are
entered first in the following dialog.
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Output directory |
The output directory for the
converted images. If this is left blank, then the output directory is the
same as the input image directory. |
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Output prefix |
The output prefix to prepend
to each image name. The string entered here will be prepended to all output
image names. |
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Output postfix |
The output postfix to append
to each image name. The string entered here will be appended to all output
image names. |
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Planar Configuration |
The planar configuration of
the output file. The options are:
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Output file type |
The output image file type.
The options are:
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Output compression
mode |
The output image compression
mode. The options are:
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Output compression
quality |
If JPEG compression is used on
an output image, this quality setting will be used. This can be a number
between 0 and 100, where higher numbers equal better quality, and lower
numbers equal higher compression. Compressing files multiple times or uncompressing files and
compressing them again will result in image quality loss. |
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Rows per strip |
If images are output in
“Tiff Strip” mode, this number will control the number of rows per strip. If
-1, then the number of strips per row in the input image will be used, or a default
of 16 will be used if the input image is not in Strip mode. |
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Tile width |
If images are output in
“Tiff Tiled” mode, this number will control the width of each tile. If -1,
then the width of tiles in the input image will be used, or a default of 128
will be used if the input image is not in Tiled mode. |
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Tile height |
If images are output in “Tiff Tiled” mode, this number will
control the height of each tile. If -1, then the height of tiles in the input
image will be used, or a default of 128 will be used if the input image is
not in Tiled mode. |
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Translate if source
image format is same as target image format |
If not checked, then no
translation will be done if the source image format matches the target image
format. This can help prevent images from being compressed multiple times by
mistake. |
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Create Pyramids
This option will create image
pyramid files on one or more images. VrOne automatically creates image pyramid files
when new images are opened. This allows image pyramids to be created for large
groups of images before opening them in VrOne. Image pyramids are created
either as external files or internal sub images, based on the settings in Vr
Configuration.
The following dialog is
displayed first. If you turn on the "Overwrite existing pyramid
files?" option, then new pyramid files will be created for all selected
images, even if they already exist. The "Overwrite existing pyramid files?
Only applies if VrOne is configured to create pyramid images externally.
Next, the following dialog is
displayed to allow selection of multiple images.
Once the OK button is pressed,
the pyramid creation process will begin.
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Strip Pyramids
Strip pyramids will take a group
of images that have embedded pyramid images and remove them from the embedded
pyramid images. If the images are using compression the original image will be
re-compressed, so there may be some image quality loss.