[Tool] ChromIQ – a macOS and Windows GUI for ArgyllCMS printer profiling (v3.13.0-beta)

[itsab1989]

Sounds good.

Claude is running its full test suite now. When this is done beta 2 will be released. So I‘d say give it 15 minutes.

Maybe I‘ll replace the load ti2 / ti3 or txt buttons in the measure and build profile tabs with icons to better match the create chart and print tab before a final release for more consistency.

Edit:
The test suite found some minor bugs (nothing concerning) so beta 2 delays around 15 minutes.
I‘ll update this post once it is out.

 

[itsab1989]

Beta 7 is ready:

https://github.com/itsab1989/ChromIQ/releases


https://github.com/itsab1989/ChromIQ/releases/tag/v3.13.12-beta.7

Made some tweaks to it:

 

[bigbadstickerco]

Wow this is so rad lol. I am just finding this project, just got it downloaded and installed- it looks like its being updated as recently as like an hour ago? Super cool. Very excited to try this out. Thanks for your work on this itsab1989.

Out of curiosity, once profiles are made, what are you guys driving your printers with? I am eyeing PrintFab, but I’m entirely new to… “desktop-class” printer RIPs. I’m looking to get my ET-8550 properly profiled and start offering art/photo prints, though my experience with producing good prints is limited to wide-format solvent ink stuff, and my RIP doesn’t support desktop photo printers like my little Epson

 

[bigbadstickerco]

Just finished building a profile. Unfortunately ChromIQ crashed on me each time a chart finished printing when using a uniquely generated chart. Thankfully when I loaded a premade chart, the 3-page i1 Letter one from The Pharmacist, I was able to make it all the way through and build the profile.

Would be nice to be able to easily save a generated chart to re-open it in case of a crash. The only other profiler I’ve really used has a save function that allows you to just capture all progress up till that point to your desktop or wherever, and then you can just re-import it and pick up exactly where you left off. That kind of thing + an auto-save (at least saving the generated chart itself) to prevent crashes resulting in wasted media (unless I’m missing something) would be great. Having it crash right after the 3rd sheet finishes printing sucks, but it’s not like I started with my most expensive paper, so not a biggie. Just nervous to try the fine-tuning feature or to build a profile on the more expensive paper atm.

Otherwise it seems to work great! The UI can feel a bit busy/labeling a hair confusing at times, but overall this is such an incredibly useful tool and I’m super grateful for all of the work that’s been put into it!

I copied the crash logs into a note and can share them on github, or here, if either would be more helpful

Thanks so much for building such an awesome tool!!

 

[mavtop]

wow @itsab1989 it is fantastic, i hope to have my i1pro1 (one of two) working the next weekend and hope you will have the new stable version to try too

 

[itsab1989]

wow @itsab1989 it is fantastic, i hope to have my i1pro1 (one of two) working the next weekend and hope you will have the new stable version to try too

Well the stable version will be released when I don‘t get much bug reports regarding the new beta features anymore
Aside from the name there is not mich difference between beta and stable except for the missing translations in the beta because I have to change things around more often when they are new and translating stuff into 13 languages everytime would take a lot time and reduce my usage limits. So I save this for last. Aside from this I just call it beta to not bother most user with very frquent update notifications as there can be multiple beta releases every day while trying things out and working on the extensive feedback I get from Knut and some bigs and inconsistencies I find on my own.
But the betas should not break any existing workflows if you don’t enable the new engine in the settings. And even this should be hopefully pretty safe.

The only thing I want you to be aware of is that we changed the file handling a bit for a better overview in the working folder. So there is a better structure with less clutter hopefully. It is supposed to have a mogration process so older sessions are updated when they are loaded. But backwards compatibility will probably not be working I think.

However beta 14 should be ready soon with some tweaks and should feel more performant. Will be available under this link:

https://github.com/itsab1989/ChromIQ/releases/tag/v3.13.12-beta.14

 

[pharmacist]

@itsab1989 : I am not sure but I cannot find the button in the generate patches to shuffle/randomize the patch layout before exporting to pxf-file. For the ti1 this is no problem as ChromIQ can do it for you in the patch layout interface.

The reason is that the pxf-file is fixed (in order to prevent the i1Profiler engine to regenerate the patch layout according to the native engine, which is good), so when imported into i1Profiler the layout is fixed and I want to randomize the layout before exporting to a fixed (randomized) pxf-file that cannot be altered by i1Profiler.

In the older version there was a button to shuffle/randomize the patches before the pxf-file is saved. The reason is that for the ti1 file this is not a problem as the "create test target" can deal with the randomisation, but the pxf-file is saved as such and fixed (which is good in order to prevent the i1Profiler engine to regerate the patch layout with a totally different layout), but can Claude reintroduce a function to preshuffle the patch layout before saving it to a pxf-file ?

Also the ti1 to pxf converter no shuffle possibility:

When imported in i1Profiler is remains unshuffled:

 

[itsab1989]

Sure. We did not think of this when we took it out. Will be back later today I hope.

I want to also make you aware that I added a new option in the beta section of the settings window to make the connection to the instrument faster when starting a measurement. I noticed that this was working much faster on my Windows VM compared to my main macOS system. Turned out it was not because macOS vs Windows but because the VM exposed less port to Argyll so it did not have to scan that much.
That new option now takes care of this (for me at least). Claude measured that without it clicking the start measurement button it took 11 seconds until the calibration pop up appeared. With the new option it is now instant. In beta 15 it does not work for windows at all. When beta 16 comes out it should however due to the specifics of a VM I am not 100% sure Claude was able to figure out the ports it should not expose to Argyll. So if this works for you it should work for the spotread tool and unmodified Argyll inside ChromIQ as well. If you have issues just disable this option.

I will make a new post when beta 16 is ready for you.

 

[itsab1989]

@pharmacist

Should take around 15 minutes until beta 16 will be out. the fix I metnioned above should then hopefully be working for windows as well and I added a new checkbox to the spots you mentioned:

 

[pharmacist]

Hi @itsab1989,

Still not seeing beta 16. I presume Claude is still working on it ?