The main Pyxis program window is shown below.  The window may be divided into a few principal parts.  On the top of the form there is the main menu bar; most image processing commands and other general program functions are found in the menu bar.  Below this we have a tool bar containing several icons; clicking on these icons perform certain frequently used operations in the program, for example, zooming in and out of an image.  Below the tool bar is a series of tabbed forms that contain settings for displaying and capturing the images.  These are frequently accessed controls that would normally be kept easily accessible on the main form, however, the tabbed forms can also be hidden by de-selecting "View->Main Acquisiting controls".

The main client area of the window is used to display the captured or loaded images.  Images are displayed in separate child windows.  Clicking on a child window has the effect of bringing that image window into focus. Settings on the main form always reflect the settings for the currently focussed child window.  The user can select the maximum number of child windows that can be open on the form by changing the setting under "Window->Maximum files open".  The user also has the option of forcing any newly captured images to be loaded in the same child window; this saves time due to the overhead of opening and closing child windows.

The palette for the currently focussed image, or the default palette if no image is loaded, is displayed on the right edge of the client area.  When an image has focus, a cross-hair cursor appears and the pixel position and "intensity" value of the pixel is displayed on the left hand side of the status bar (at the bottom of the form).  The file name of the image is displayed to the right of the pixel coordinates.  Pressing the left mouse button down on the image and dragging the mouse causes a selection rectangle to be drawn on the image.  This is used for selecting image subframes for various operations.  The subframe can also be manually selected on the "Subframe selection" tab-control page.  Double clicking on the image and holding the left mouse button down while moving the mouse causes a "rubber band" or selection-line to be drawn on the image.  The selection line is used to select a cross-section to display through the image.  Once a selection has been made on the, right clicking on the image brings up a pop-up with various action options; for example, one option is to display the selected cross-section through the image.  Of particular importance is the "Set capture coordinates" option, which is used to apply the selected sub-frame to the image capture sub-frame (useful for focussing or rapid capture of planetary image sequences).

Saving the program settings

Note that when you close Pyxis, many of the settings you used in displaying the last image viewed are saved and automatically and will be applied next time Pyxis runs.  The position and size of the main form in the screen area is also maintained between sessions.  To save the current settings and make them the default settings, select "File->Save settings as default" - this is to allow the settings to be saved in case the application hangs before it is terminated normally.  The settings can also be saved in a completely different file so that different capture setups can be recalled easily.