Autoconfigure of Frame #1

SAOtng supports multiple frame buffers, so that more than one image can be loaded simultaneously. Images can be blinked, or tiled (so that they appear on screen at the same time). Tiled images can have their color maps synchronized, etc. Support for multiple frames requires that the frame size of each be the same. The initial frame size can be specified using -framesize (or -framewidth and -frameheight), with a 512x512 frame being created by default. Frame size also can be specified with the IRAF .ximtoolrc file . Once specified, the frame size is fixed, but ...

Users of the old SAOimage program are used to having the frame size adjust itself as each new image is loaded. This autoconfigure functionality is available in SAOtng so long as frame #1 alone is used. (SAOimage was a single frame display program, and so the restriction on autoconfiguring a single frame was implicit). To specify autoconfigure of frame #1, use the -autoconfig switch or the SAOTNG_AUTOCONFIG environment variable. By default, this is turned on.

When autoconfigure is turned on, the framesize will be reconfigured each time a new image is loaded. SAOtng will choose a framesize to be the minimum of the new image size and the maxsize specified for memory images. (The latter is specified with the -maxsize switch or the SAOTNG_MAXSIZE environment variable). If not enough memory can be allocated to reconfigure the frame, then the default frame size will be used. The zoom factor is reset to 1. NB: Frame size must be even in each dimension; values will be decremented if odd values are specified.

If only frame #1 is being used, then the Frames menu will display 2 additional autoconfigure options:

Manually Configure Width and Length of Frame #1

This will bring up a dialog window that allows specification of a framesize regardless of the size of the loaded image. One or two integer values should be entered (a square frame is assumed if one value is specified) and the current frame will be reconfigured for that size. When a frame size is specified manually, auto-configuration is turned off so that new images also use the specified frame size. Note that manual configuration will raise the autoconfig overall limits (see below) if the specified sizes are larger than the current limits.

Set the Overall Limit on Autoconfig Width and Length

SAOtng will try to reconfigure itself to match the size of the newly loaded image. For very large images (some X-ray images are of size 32Kx32k), this is not the right thing to do! Therefore, SAOtng supports a limit on the width and length for autoconfig. By default this limit is 1024x1024. You can reset the limit using the dialog box which comes up with this menu options. Enter one or two values for width and length.

Disable/Enable Autoconfig of Frame #1

Toggle the autoconfig mode. When turned on, loading new images will trigger a frame autoconfigure. When turned off, the last frame size will be used for new image.

If a second frame is created, the frame size of all frames becomes fixed at the current configuration. In this case, the two autoconfig menu options are replaced by tile and blink options. To re-enable autoconfig, all frames except frame #1 must be deleted.

NB: When manually changing the size of a frame, SAOtng deletes the current markers. We hope to remove this limitation in a future release.

Last Updated June 14, 1997