PTGui 8.0.2

[PTGui Support]

Hi all,

You can download PTGui 8.0.2 now, the 'machine gun' bug is fixed. It
only affected PowerPC macs.

Joost

[Marcus]

Thanks Joost. Good work!
Marcus

[Hopki]

On Sep 10, 1:44 pm, PTGui Support <supp...@ptgui.com> wrote:

HI Joost
I am having problems with the new 8.0.1 and now 8.0.2
I jumped to 8.0.1 last night from 7.8 and found that when in the crop
window the curser was sticking and the screen would lock for a few
seconds then move. Is this what you are calling the machine gun bug?

I have just updated to 8.0.2 and it’s the same, in fact I am getting
momentary locking when moving from optimiser window to control points
window.

I am using 32 bit Vista
Intel quad core CPU, Q6600 @2.4 GHz with 3GB ram and a GeForse 8500 GT
display card.

The program is very sluggish, 7.8 did not have any of these problems,
I even tried using 1 CPU but that did not change a thing.

Help.

[360texas]

Hopki, sounds like you have the same computer hardware I do.

Yes, 8.0.1 is doing the same on this machine.

[PTGui Support]

Hi Hopki,

Does this problem occur with large projects? Could you try loading just
one source image and see if the hickups are still there?

What if you set 'number of simultaneous threads' to 1?

And if you disable 'Automatically reload modified source images'?

Both options are in Options/Advanced.

Joost

[Hopki]

Hi Joost

"Does this problem occur with large projects?" No I have tryed all
diffrent sizes and still the same.

"Could you try loading just one source image and see if the hickups
are still there?"

OK tried just one image and still the same.

"What if you set 'number of simultaneous threads' to 1?"

Still no good.

"And if you disable 'Automatically reload modified source images'?"

Tryed that too.

It is still useable but very frustrating.

Let me know if you want more info
Kind regards
Hopki

[PTGui Support]

Hi Hopki,

This will be difficult to diagnose; I can't reproduce the problem here
(conincidentally I do have the same Q6600 cpu). More questions therefore:

Have you configured any specific temp folder in PTGui? (Options/Folders
& Files)

Does the locking occur even if you have no source images loaded?

For how long does the program appear to lock? Is it just a fraction of a
second, or several seconds?

What about the interval between lockups?

Does it appear in the Control Points and Crop tab only?

If you hover the mouse above the menu bar, Vista displays a rounded
rectangle around the menu item below the cursors. If you continuously
hover the mouse over the menu bar, do you see lockups there as well?

If anyone else has the same problems, could you report your hardware and
OS configuration?

Thanks,
Joost

[Hopki]

Hi Joost

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
The answers to your questions follow:

Q. Have you configured any specific temp folder in PTGui? (Options/
Folders & Files)

A. No, its whatever the installation default would be, had a quick
look in Options, and all the fields in the Folders & Files tab are
blank


Q. Does the locking occur even if you have no source images loaded?

A. With no source image all is fine the mouse curser changes to the
cross in the crop window and moves smoothly.

Q. For how long does the program appear to lock? Is it just a fraction

of a second, or several seconds?

A. I opened PTGui and dragged in four pictures, in advance mode. I
have opened the crop window and the mouse curser changes to the
crosshair. This also moves smoothly across the crop window. I opened
other tabs, Control Points, Image Parameters and the mouse scrolls
smoothly in these windows.

I returned to the crop window and dragged the top of dotted circle
down about 4mm. When I let go of the mouse the curser changed to the
Direction Arrow icon and froze for about 4 seconds. I then moved the
mouse curser to the upper left of the window and dragged it down and
to the right. The dotted circle did not move for about 3 seconds then
jumped to the direction I was dragging. I then moved the curser and
dragged the circle up from the top, this did something similar, not
moving then jumping. I noticed that the curser was sticking even
though when out of the crop window the mouse movement was normal,
inside it was jerking with about 1 to 2 seconds gap, then after about
5 seconds it freed up and movement was normal.
If you click and hold on the dotted circle and just drag it in one
direction it moves then stops, after about 2 seconds it moves then
after about 3 to 4 seconds it repeats.

Q. Does it appear in the Control Points and Crop tab only?

A. yes, In the control points window is all well until you optimise,
and then return the windows lock up and it takes a bout a good 5 to 10
seconds before the movement is normal.

Q. If you hover the mouse above the menu bar, Vista displays a rounded

rectangle around the menu item below the cursors. If you continuously
hover the mouse over the menu bar, do you see lockups there as well?

A. No, when the mouse curser is out of the window, say crop window all
works ok, the lock is only with the mouse curser in the window, crop
or optimize. The other thing I just noticed is that when dragging the
dotted circle the curser moves to one side, then it will lock and then
the curser jumps back to where you started?

Q. If anyone else has the same problems, could you report your
hardware and OS configuration?
I would say it gets sticky when you ask it to do something, move a
crop window or optimise.


360Texas has the same problem,

Hoped thid helped

Kind regards
Hopki

[Erik Krause]

On Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 11:22, PTGui Support wrote:

> This will be difficult to diagnose; I can't reproduce the problem here
> (conincidentally I do have the same Q6600 cpu).

Perhaps ProcessExplorer is helpful here. It gives you the CPU load
per process and far more information on running processes and threads
than windows task manager.

best regards
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Hopki]

What?????
What is ProcessExplorer and how do I use it?
Regards
Hopki

[Erik Krause]

On Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 11:58, Hopki wrote:

> What?????
> What is ProcessExplorer and how do I use it?

It is an alternative to windows task manager by sysinternals.com (now
bought by microsoft). It gives you tons of informations about running
processes, open handles, process dependencies, performance and other.
Most of it hard to understand for an non-programmer, but you can spot
clearly whether a program (in this case PTGui) hangs because it
consumes too much CPU power or whether it is another process. I
thought it might be of use for Joost to localize the reason for the
hang...

[PTGui Support]

Erik, good suggestion indeed!

Hopki you can download it here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

After launching PTGui and ProcessExplorer, browse to the PTGui.exe line,
double click and go to the Performance Graph tab. It would be
interesting to see what the CPU usage is during the lockups. On your
Quad core CPU, if it is 25% this would mean that the GUI thread is
completely busy.

Another thing I'd like to know: does it make any difference whether the
zoom level is set to 100% or any other value?

Joost

[PTGui Support]

Hi Hopki,

If you have the time, I have some more ideas to try:

Are you using a virus scanner? It might somehow be interfering with
PTGui's temporary file access. Any difference if you temporarily disable it?

In Task Manager (launch through right-click on the task bar), do you see
any other application with a high CPU load while PTGui is hanging?

And can you try to make a process dump while PTGui is hanging? In Vista
this can be done from Task Manager. Right click on PTGui.exe and choose
'Create Dump File'. Do this while only one image is loaded (otherwise
the dump file becomes very large). It's very important that the dump is
created while PTGui is hanging. This may be tricky, but if it's hanging
for 4 seconds this should be feasible I guess.

You can add the dump file to a .zip file and send to me at
http://www.ptgui.com/upload.html

Sorry for all the questions, but I still have no idea what would be
causing this..

Joost

[Hopki]

Hi Joost
I posted the dump file, got anywhere with it?
Regards
Hopki

[PTGui Support]

Got it, I'll look into it soon..

Thanks
Joost

[jveyck]

On Sep 17, 9:04 am, PTGui Support <supp...@ptgui.com> wrote:
>
> Are you using a virus scanner? It might somehow be interfering with
> PTGui's temporary file access. Any difference if you temporarily disable it?

I can confirm Joost's assumption, that a virus scanner can have some
influence on the performance of PTGui. I see a similar effect as Hopki
in the panorama editor when doing output cropping and when my virus
scanner does real time scanning of files:

Say i have done a perspective correction, which moves the picture far
outside the center point, so that most part of the field of view is
black. Since V8.0 there is the possibility to do an output cropping by
dragging a yellow crop line from one edge to the picture.

This dragging often shows the same effect as Hopki has seen. The
dragged line freezes half ways for a second and jumps then to the
actual cursor position. I can hear the hard drive working during this
operation.

But: If I switch off the real time scanning of the virus scanner, the
dragging is completely smooth. No freezing, no jumping!
So in my case the virus scanner definitly interferes with PTGui's
temporary files.

My environment:
PTGui 8.02
Virus scan: McAffee Security Center
Vista Home Premium SP1
Intel Core Quad CPU Q6600 2.4GHz

Wolfgang

[Hopki]

Hi Joost
I know I turned off anti virus but I went in and stoped real time
scanning and like Walfgang its working ok.
Sorry I must have not done it.
Now that we know its real time scanning what can we do to stop it
interfering?

Once again sorry for leading you up the garden path.

Thanks Walfgang I would not have tried it again if you had not posted.

Many thanks Hopki

[PTGui Support]

Hi Hopki,

I'm only glad that the problem was found..
Are you using McAfee as well? Or some other virus scanner?

Probably it can be solved as follows:

- create a dedicated folder for PTGui temp files (eg c:\ptguitemp\)
- in PTGui, go to Options / Folders & Fiels and configure this folder
- in your virus scanner there should probably a way to ignore certain
files and folders when doing the real time scanning. Enter this new
folder, or alternatively have it ignore .tmp files completely.

Anyone who has this problem, could you please let me know which virus
scanner you are using? Probably it not only gives the hickups in the
GUI, but it would slow down stitching as well.

At least with the Avast scanner there is no problem.

Kind regards,

New House Software Pte. Ltd.
Joost Nieuwenhuijse

-----------------------------------------------
PTGui - Photo Stitching Software
www.ptgui.com

For support, see: http://www.ptgui.com/faq/
-----------------------------------------------

[Erik Krause]

On Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 11:17, PTGui Support wrote:

> Anyone who has this problem, could you please let me know which virus
> scanner you are using? Probably it not only gives the hickups in the
> GUI, but it would slow down stitching as well.

I don't have this problem. However, Avira AntiVir allows to except
processes from virus scanning. Is this a way to go?

Most virus scanners don't scan image files per default. If I remember
correctly, the temp files are TIFFs anyway. Wouldn't it be better to
use the tif extension for them?

[Hopki]

Hi Joost
I am useing McAfee 8.1.
Kind regards
Hopki

[Ken Warner]

I had a version of McAfee Anti-Virus and Firewall.

I had to uninstall it. Everything was slower.

I got Comodo Firewall Pro. It's free and fast.

[PTGui Support]

The temp files are not in any image format; they just contain raw data.

I think a virus scanner should interfere when an process accesses files
created by itself, there's no infection risk in such a case.

Joost

[PTGui Support]

I've tried mcAfee 9, and they seem to have fixed the problem. No lockups.

I couldn't get hold of a copy of version 8; if anyone succesfully
disabled on access scanning for PTGui's temp files in mcafee 8, could
you let me know how so I can add it to the FAQ?

Thanks,
Joost

[Hopki]

Hi Joost
You can only switch real time scanning off or suspend it for set
amounts of time.
I can not see where you can tell it not to scan, say temp files.
Version 9 hear we come.
Hopk

PS did you get my e-mail Hopki Media.