Edit Pixel Mask

The Edit Pixel Mask command is used to view or input the coordinates of bad pixels. This editor creates and saves a pixel description mask in the Pixel Mask File field. Use this tool to create new pixel masks or to review and edit masks created by the Create Pixel Mask command.

Editing Pixel Masks

The Pixel Mask Editor is a resizable Table Editor window. The Mask file current loaded is listed in the drop edit field at the top of the window.

To Create a New Mask:

  1. Type X (column) and Y (row) coordinates for each pixel location on a separate line of the table. The Notes entry is optional.

  2. The editor adds lines in chunks of 100. If you run to the end of the buffer, right click on the table to open its Context Menu and select Append Rows. Then continue entering mask data.

  3. When you are finished typing and changing values, save using one of these methods:

  4.     Click [Apply] to save to the original file.

        Click the button to save it to a new file or a different file.

To Edit an Existing Mask:

  1. Click on the right end of the Pixel Mask File field. Select the pixel mask file and click [Open] to load the pixel mask.

  2. Edit (x,y) pixel coordinates as needed. Note that the editor adds lines in chunks of 100. If you run to the end of the buffer, right click on the table to open its Context Menu and select Append Rows. Then continue entering pixel coordinate data.

  3. When you are finished typing and changing values, save using one of these methods:

  4.     Click [Apply] to save to the original file.

        Click the button to save it to a new file or a different file.

What is a Pixel Mask?

A pixel mask is simply a collection of point locations in an image. When a pixel mask is applied to an image, the value at each mask coordinate is replaced by a value obtained from the neighboring pixels. This technique is used to repair defective pixels or "hot" pixels caused by thermal noise in CCD images. If the bad pixel locations do not change, then the same mask can be used for many images on different occasions.

A Pixel Mask is usually stored in a file with a pxm extension, like Pixel-mask.pxm, although txt or any other extension is possible. Each line describes the coordinates of 1 pixel. The Notes column holds an optional comment.

Note

Remember that coordinates in Mira are 1-based, meaning that pixel (1,1) is the origin of the image array. See Image Coordinate System and Pixel Coordinate Definition.

Related Topics

Create Pixel Mask, Apply Pixel Mask, Interactive Repair, Edit Blemish Mask, Calibrate Images, Image Coordinate System