Starnet++ plugin
for Astroart 7.0 / 6.0 (full version), version 1.0.
LICENSE
This plugin is released as freeware.
This plugin is provided "AS IS". It's not guaranteed that it will work properly on all PCs
and related hardware. This plugin and its documentation are provided without warranty of any kind,
either express or implied, including the fitness for every purpose.
About Starnet++, see the README.txt and LICENSE in the Starnet folder for more information.
Please note that Starnet++ requires a modern CPU with AVX instructions (available since 2011) and Windows 64 bit.
Memory and CPU usage is intensive.
ABOUT
This plugin connects with Starnet++, a software which removes stars from an image
using a neural network, e.g. artificial intelligence.
See: https://github.com/nekitmm/starnet.
STARNET INSTALLATION
Visit the web site:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/starnet/ then click
the "Download" button, which should select automatically the version for Windows, called "StarNet_Win.zip". If this
does not work, click: Files / V 1.1 / "StarNet_Win.zip".
When the zip file is downloaded (more than 400 Mb), open it and copy the starnet folder into a folder of
your hard disk (don't copy it in ProgramFiles otherwise the following test "run_mono_starnet.bat" will not work,
since ProgramFiles is write-protected).
In the Starnet folder there's a picture called "mono_test5.tif", try to open it in a graphic program or in Astroart.
To verify that Starnet++ is installed properly, execute the file "run_mono_starnet.bat" which will run the
software and create a starless version of the "mono_test5.tif" image. When done, open that image as well.
PLUGIN INSTALLATION
To install this plugin (after having installed Starnet++, see above) copy the files pistarnet.dll,
p64istarnet.dll and this guide (StarnetPlugin-readme.htm) into the Astroart installation directory,
usually C:\Program Files(..)\Astroart.
USAGE
At first, select the folder where you installed Starnet.
Starnet requires an image with a real 16 bit dynamic [0..65000], but it can work well until [0..20000]. Below 10000
the plugin will refuse to start.
If your image has a lower dynamic you may use the Astroart command "Scale" or "Multiply constant" to fix it. It's also
possible to use the command "Histogram Stretch" with dynamic 65535.
If you are processing a 8 bit image (for example, a JPEG), you may scale it automatically with
the option "Image is 8 bit".
As a first test, use an image smaller than 1000x1000 pixels, because the processing is slow and CPU intensive,
and cannot be stopped. You may crop a region from an your image (bigger than 256x256, which is the minimum size).
HISTORY
2020/11/08: 1.0 The first release.
www.msb-astroart.com