Properties of File to Open Dialog

This dialog lets you set the properties of a file to open for a Navigator item to be acquired.

Open file for:

Select Single frame images to open a file for single images, or Montaged images to open a file for a montage, in which case the Montage Setup dialog box will open next.

Fit montage to polygon

If the Navigator item in a polygon and you have selected to open a montage, this option can be selected to fit the montage to the polygon.  Number of pieces, frame sizes, and overlaps will be adjusted to acquire just the area needed to cover the polygon, and pieces fully outside the polygon will be skipped.

Skip montage setup dialog when fitting in future

If you are fitting montages to polygons, select this option to avoid having both this dialog and the Montage Setup dialog open when you select New file at item in the Navigator for other polygons.  You can still use the File Props button there to open these dialogs.

Montage reusability

Ordinarily, when a new file is opened during Navigator acquisition, a previously opened file will be closed.  The choices here represent a mechanism for leaving montage files open and reusing them for montages where the polygon would require the same number of pieces, with the same piece size and overlap.  (The location and number of skipped pieces can differ.)  The goal is to reduce the number of files that need to be managed when acquiring montages as many polygons.  The setup of files using this mechanism is handled automatically when new files are set to be opened for a whole collection of polygons at once, using Shift-N at both ends of the range of polygons in the Navigator.  In that case, the program fits montages independently to each polygon.  With all those montage parameters available, it then analyzes each set of montages with the same number of pieces, determining a piece size and overlap that will cover all of them.  It assigns those size and overlap values to all matching montages where the extra area being acquired by taking a larger area does not exceed a certain fraction of the overall area, where the file would be opened for the first such montage and left open, and used for the later montages.  That fraction is set by the property 'MaxMontReuseWaste' and has a default of 0.2.  The process is repeated until all montages are handled.

The choices here are:

• Close file when next new file is to be opened - the normal behavior with no file reuse
• Leave file open for reuse; close matching montage - A new file will be opened unconditionally for this item and left open when the next file is opened.  Rather than closing the last opened file, a previously left-open montage with matching settings will be closed if one exists.  This practice prevents an unlimited number of files being left open.  Items with this setting will show acquisition codes of AL instead of AF.
• Open file only if needed; leave open for reuse - A new file will be opened only if there is no previous left-open montage with matching settings to use instead.  The new file will in turn be left open for reuse.  Items with this setting will show acquisition codes of AO instead of AF.

Just change reusability without refitting montage

This option is available in case you do fitting to a large number of polygons and wish to split the montages into more files than the minimum number that the program came up with.   Without this option, if you open this dialog for an item where you want to start a new file, change the setting from Open only if needed to Leave file open for reuse, and press OK, it will go on to the montage setup dialog and refit the polygon, almost certainly giving it a size that is not suitable for reuse.  With this option checked, pressing OK causes the new setting to be stored and no other changes to occur.