README

arif - ADV Realtime Image Filtering
===================================

arif is a software package for estimating the quality of images in a
video stream, be it a pre-recorded video or a live capture. It is
meant to facilitate the lucky imaging technique in amateur
astronomy. Quality is estimated using a decomposition technique called
"gaussian wavelets", similar to the well-known unsharp mask
filter. Using heavy multithreading, it will keep your processors busy,
hopefully keeping up with a live video stream. It is coupled to QArv,
another software package from the same authors which allows video
capture from ethernet cameras.

arif can:
     * read your video and decompose it into images for further
       processing;
     * find the approximate center of a planetary image and crop it,
       providing pre-alignment to ease further registration;
     * estimate the quality of each image and write it into the image
       filename for easy sorting and comparison of images;
     * discard low quality images if requested, saving disk space;
     * display graphs showing how quality varies with time and the
       quality distribution of images;
     * export processing settings, facilitating batch processing of
       similar video streams without needing a graphical interface.

Homepage: https://github.com/AD-Vega/arif/

See also: https://github.com/AD-Vega/lycklig/
          lycklig implements further processing stages for lucky imaging.


Requirements and installation
=============================

arif requires QArv and its dependencies (Qt, OpenCV etc.). In
addition, it requires the tclap and boost libraries.

arif is built using CMake. If you are not familiar with CMake, refer
to any tutorial. But for starters, run these commands from the arif
source directory:

  mkdir build
  cd build
  cmake ..
  make
  sudo make install

You can skip the "make install" step and run arif from the build
directory directly, although there might be problems with localization
and icon loading.


Licensing information
=====================

arif is provided under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or
later. See COPYING for more information.

Copyright 2015 Jure Varlec <jure.varlec@ad-vega.si>
               Andrej Lajovic <andrej.lajovic@ad-vega.si>