Imatest Instructions - Getting started

• • ChaChrome on glass (up to 4x4 inches (100x100mm; ultra-fine; no grayscales)),
  • Color photographic film (up to 8x10 inches; fine; low noise),
  • Black & White film (up to 12x20 inches; noisier than color; good for NIR and SWIR (Near and Shortwave Infrared)),
  • Photographic paper (finer than inkjet and better for NIR and SWIR), and
  • Inkjet (up to 44 inches high; too coarse to be suitable for very small charts). You can print your own inkjet charts, but for highest quality we recommend purchasing them from the Imatest store.

We encourage customers to contact charts at imatest dot com with questions about chart suitability. Let us know your camera's pixel resolution and field of view. 

Running Imatest

Imatest is opened by

• double-clicking the Imatest icon on the Desktop,
• from Windows Start menu: Start → All Programs → Imatest  → Version →   Imatest Edition , illustrated on the right.
• or from the Imatest directory, typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Imatestversion (where version is Master, IS, Studio, etc.) in win64 English language installations.

After several seconds (up to a minute after the first installation or a reboot), the Imatest main window, shown below, opens.

In the New Imatest Main Window, user can select an image, and select the analysis to be run. (This can be done in either order.) Click the "Analyze" button to run. If ROI selection, or other settings are required, a window will pop up, for user entry. (If using the Classic UI, Imatest analysis modules are run by clicking on one of the buttons in the left two columns.)

Table of contents.

Finding Imatest Help

• Comprehensive Imatest help can be found on the Documentation page (the Table of Contents). 
• The Learn icon (top menu in the Imatest software) has links to important online documentation.
• Tooltips (blocks of text that appear for a few seconds when you hover the mouse above a button) contain concise descriptions of the button function. 
• In the Classic UI, right-clicking on most buttons in the Imatest main window (including the tabbed box on the right) opens a help document for the button function.  
• VIDEOS and Online training are available.

If you're starting out, sample images for several modules can be downloaded from Github.

Saved settings: imatest-v2.ini

Settings are saved in an INI file named imatest-v2.ini, described in detail in Saved settings (INI files) and in theManage settings button in the  Data tab .

Settings include Font size, folders for opening and saving images, calculation parameters, plot selection, and figures to display and save. Several INI file utilities can be accessed from the INI File dropdown menu, described below. You can view or edit the settings withINI file editor orView settings (ini file), save or load ini files, and do much more.

You can perform a number of functions related to troubleshooting and fixing errors, described in Saved settings (INI files), Troubleshooting, and the important Knowledge base post, A module that formerly worked has stopped working. The INI File Index, which will be of interest to advanced users, contains a description of the INI file monitor. 

Display dropdown menu

The Displaydropdown menu contains important settings that affect font, windows, and figure size. You should set fonts be the right size relative to the image: not too small, which makes test difficult to read and doesn't utilized space reserved for text, and not too large, which causes text to cover other objects.

Imatest has several settings to adjust font and window size for the DPI scaling of different computers.

To access these, click Display (on the top bar of the main window), which opens the dropdown shown on the left. Settings:

• Font size: set it so it appears correct in figures, i.e., not too small or large.
• Normal or enlarged screen (Imatest main window).
• Normal or enlarged figures (1.25 or 1.5x). You may need to enlarge the font for enlarged figures.
• Normal or enlarged interactive windows (Color/Tone Interactive, Rescharts, Batchview, etc.)

Open the image file

Most Imatest analysis modules require an image file to be opened.

When you open the module (in some cases) or push a button to open an image file (in other cases), a dialog box opens that requests the name of the image file. Supported image file formats are summarized below.

• Enter additional input data. Unless Express mode has been selected, a Settings window opens that settings data, depending on the module. Most additional data is optional (and is saved from previous runs); you only need to pay attention to settings you wish to change. Click OK to run the program or Cancel to terminate the run.
• Save results? After an analysis has been run, a dialog box asks if you would like to save the results. Checkboxes in the dialog box enable you to select the Figures, CSV (Excel-readable), and JSON files to be saved. You can examine the results before deciding which, if any, to save. (The Save box is omitted in the evaluation version.) Figures can be saved as PNG (losslessly-compressed) image files or Matlab Fig files (not recommended because of their large size. Fig files can be opened and manipulated with Open Fig file.

Helpful buttons

In the New Main window, click on the "Learn" Tab - to learn about Imatest Image Analysis, Charts, IQFs and Standards. It also has links to the Educational Apps. Or, click on Help menu on the top menu bar.

Buttons below are used to access help in the Classic UI.

Each of these buttons, which are in the tabs on the right of the image, opens a large Help window with lots of explanations and buttons that open a variety of functions. You should familiarize yourself with them and use them whenever the need arises.

Help guide (in the Help tab) opens a window with links to some of the most useful instruction web pages as well as brief explanations of what they contain, including Registration quickstart | Imatest instructions | Image quality factors | Imatest tour | Table of Contents (site map) | FAQ | Change Log | Testing lenses | MTF Curves & Appearance | SFRplus | Troubleshooting.

Manage settings (in the Data tab) opens a window that explains some of the key functions for setting and examining the contents of the file for saving Imatestsettings, imatest-v2.ini. It also displays the full path name to imatest.ini and shows how to fix bugs that can arise when imatest-v2.ini is corrupted. Function buttons include Save settings..., Load settings..., View/Edit settings (ini file), Copy settings (ini file), Import / Merge settings, Edit / Reset Modules, and Reset Defaults (all).

Error handling (in the Data tab) opens a window that shows what to do if you encounter an error. It includes link to the Change Log and Troubleshooting pages, buttons for Copying the current or last session to the clipboard for pasting into emails, and instructions on fixing imatest.ini when it gets corrupted.

Raw files

Raw files are the unprocessed output of digital image sensors. For Bayer sensors, each raw pixel represents a single color in RGRGRG, GBGBGB, ... sequence. To be converted into usable, standard file formats (TIFF, JPEG, etc.), raw files must be processed by a raw converter. Raw converters perform several functions: demosaicing (converting the Bayer sequence into full color), applying a gamma curve, often with an additional tonal response curve, color correction and white balance, reducing noise, and sharpening the image. These operations affect Imatest measurements, especially sharpness (MTF or SFR).

The best way to be sure an image file faithfully resembles the raw file— that it has minimal processing— is to read a raw file into Imatest and convert it into a standard format (typically TIFF) using LibRaw for commercial raw files (identified by extension: CR2, NEF, etc.) or Generalized Read Raw for binary development files (also identified by extension, often RAW). For commercial raw files, the dialog box on the right appears. It allows you to choose among several raw conversion options. Details for both commercial and binary files can be found in Raw files.

Raw files can be converted with demosaicing (standard RGB format) or without demosaicing (which allows the original R, G(R), B, G(B) channels to be analyzed separately.

Exit closes all figures and terminates Imatest.

Close figures closes all figures. Important because the computer will slow down if too many are open. You can close figures individually by the usual Windows methods — clicking the X in the upper right or right-clicking on the figure icon on the Taskbar and selecting Close.

EXIF (in the Utility dropdown menu) displays EXIF metadata for an image file. Most file formats supported when ExifTool is installed (instructions below). EXIF data can be alphabetized to facilitate locating settings, copied to the clipboard (for pasting into a text editor), and saved in a text file in the same folder as the image file.

Troubleshooting — what to do if you encounter a bug

Despite our best efforts (which are continually improving), customers sometimes encounter bugs, in part because we keep adding features (most requested by customers). Bugs can be caused by bad images, a bad sequence of operations, or errors in Imatest code. There are several things you can do when you encounter an error. Most of them can be found in the Troubleshooting page or by pressing Error handling (in the  Help tab).

1. Check the Online My License tool or the Download page to make sure you have the most recent version of the Imatest release allowed by your license.
   If you use the Download page you'll need to compare your support expiration date with the Change log. You can find the most recent version by clicking on Latest release or the Previous releases version (for example, 2020.1), then clicking on Download upgrade. The current version appears in the Save window, e.g., Imatest-2020.1.14-upgrade.exe. Download the current version if it's newer than the version you're running. For detailed highlights of Imatest releases, see Imatest Updates and Features.
   
   
2. Try the technique in A module that formerly worked has stopped working, also described in Troubleshooting. Essentially, you open the INI file editor, select the section corresponding the the broken module (for example, [sfplus]), delete the section, then Save the results. This initializes the settings for the section (you'll have to reenter them), but often fixes bugs caused by a bad ini setting. 
   
   
   
3. If an error reporting window (shown reduced on the right; click on it to view full-sized) appears, examine the instructions and the error text, and if it's not obvious (sometime it's an easy fix, for example, for a missing file), press Send Error Report.  This opens a second window that lets you enter your email address and a description of what happened. Then press Send Error Report (yes, again). We will do our best to fix it.
   
   It can be extremely helpful if you send the image that was loaded into Imatest when the error occurred. If nothing else, we'll if we find anything wrong with it.
   
   Please follow this procedure to report an error. Sometimes we receive screen shots of this window. It's occasionally useful, but it often lacks information we need to fix the bug (the exact Imatest build, the INI file, and events that preceded the crash).

Figures

Imatest results are displayed in individual windows called Figures. A typical figure— a result of running SFR— is shown on the right.

Figures may be resized, minimized, maximized, or closed using standard Windows operations. In addition, several Windows and Matlab-specific operations can be found in the toolbar at the top of the image.

The first four icons in the toolbar are standard Windows icons: New file, Open, Save, and Print. Open and Save refer to Matlab .fig figures, which should be used sparingly because they require excessive storage. 

Of the remaining icons, Zoom in: is particularly useful. Clicking on it highlights it and enables you to zoom in on regions of the plots. You can click and drag to create a zoom rectangle or you can click on any point to zoom in on that point. Double-clicking anywhere inside the image restores the full unzoomed image.

Data Cursor, selected on by the toolbar icon, lets you click on a curve and display its coordinates in a small box called a Datatip. Right-clicking on the Datatip lets you can delete it or choose additional options.

In most modules, figures can be saved as either PNG files (a standard losslessly-compressed image file format) or as Matlab FIG files, which can be opened by Open Fig file in the Utility dropdown menu, then manipulated (zoomed and rotated). PNG files are usually preferred because FIG files require much more storage, especially for 3D FIG files, which can be rotated. 

Too many open Figures

Figures can proliferate if you do a number of runs, especially runs with multiple regions. System performance degrades if too many Figures are open. Figures can be closed individually by clicking X on the upper right of the Figure or by any of the usual Windows techniques. You can close them all by clicking Close figures in the Imatest main window.

CSV and JSON output files

Individual Imatest modules can optionally write two types of output file that contain most results.

• CSV files are most often displayed with Microsoft Excel.
• JSON files, which contain a single large JSON structure, can be read into programs written in almost any language with a single line of code using functions linked from the JSON website. They can be displayed in any text editor.

Please contact us if you have requests or suggestions about Imatest output. [Notes: These files are not saved in evaluation mode. ]

CSV files– Excel-readable Comma-Separated Variable format. Here is an example of typical output.

Module,Colorcheck
File,Canon_EOS10d_ColorCheck_lt_small.jpg
Run date,31-Dec-2005 18:11:00
Zone,Gray,Pixel,Pixel/255,Px/255 ideal,Log(exp),Log(px/255),WB Err Deg,WB Err Mired
19, 1, 241.6, 0.9475, 0.9569, -0.050, -0.023, 163, -3.8
20, 2, 215.8, 0.8464, 0.7922, -0.230, -0.072, 491, -10.8
21, 3, 179.0, 0.7020, 0.6353, -0.440, -0.154, 450, -10.0

The same data displayed in Excel looks like this.

JSON files are somewhat human-readable text files that contain a single structure— optimized for reading into programs written in virtually any programming language.

{
      "jstruct": {
            "dateRun": "03-May-2018 12:14:03",
            "ini_time_size": "03-May-2018 12:02:35 104121B  MD5 = 6a03a447754eefcc2ada6698ec63d30e",
            "version": "Imatest 5.1.0. ALPHA  Colorcheck",
            "build": "NOT COMPILED",
            "full_path_name": "C:\\imatest\\Data\\Colorcheck\\Canon_eos10d_ColorCheck_lt.jpg",
            "file_name": "Canon_eos10d_ColorCheck_lt.jpg",
            "mean_cameraSat_Pct": [0.9888],
            "pxlLevel_graypatch": [241.67,215.9,179.27,135.26,84.58,34.63],
            "pxlLevel_norml_graypatch": [0.9477,0.8467,0.703,0.5304,0.3317,0.1358],
            "densityNominal": [0.949,0.7882,0.6314,0.4784,0.3255,0.1922],
            "logExposure": [-0.05,-0.23,-0.44,-0.7,-1.05,-1.5],
            "logNormlPxlLevel": [-0.023,-0.072,-0.153,-0.275,-0.479,-0.867],
            "whiteBalErrDegs": [157.3,478,487.1,833.4,954.2,568.3],
...
            "Mean_Delta_E_00": [5.31],
            "Max_Delta_E_00": [11.42],
            "Sigma_Delta_E_00": [5.76],
            "Mean_Delta_C_00": [3.05],
            "Mean_White_Balance_delta_C_00": [2.87],
            "Max_Delta_C_00": [7.52],
            "Sigma_Delta_C_00": [3.45],
            "Mean_Delta_C_00_Sat_corrected": [3.08],
            "Max_Delta_C_00_Sat_corrected": [7.5],
            "Sigma_Delta_C_00_Sat_corrected": [3.44],
            "passfail": {
                  "ini_time_size": "04-Jul-2017 09:31:58 1734B  MD5 = 1a759325ea50ce2c4bc826dae419feac",
                  "passFailFile": "C:\\imatest\\Data\\ini_files\\passfailtest_1.txt",
                  "started_at": "2018-05-03 12:14:03",
                  "ended_at": "2018-05-03 12:14:20",
                  "runtime": [9.135914449],
                  "INI_read_success": "[colorcheck] NOT FOUND",
                  "all_tests_passed": [1]
            }
      }
}