lipeltgm

I doubt it'll be a popular response, but despite Python not requiring semicolons while many do (or most languages I use), I simply tend to end all statements with semicolons as a personal preference.

What value are you encountering for list 'D' when you get the error? As you can see from the code, not really production-grade coding and certainly not heavily tested, proof-of-concept more than anything else.

Agreed and for a few years now that's what I have done. But for detailed, log/debug driven sequence diagrams that often required parsing a log, generating a compliant text-input to the tools followed by submitting to the tool and exporting the graphic. This 30-minute project is a step in the direction to fully automate the process.

In a matter of weeks I'll be 50 and have spent the past decades growing as a software engineer. My advice; 1st, take a deep breath and calm down, 2nd, ask yourself what you love about this career and focus on that. I've been doing this for going on 30 years and have been an ambitious, eager to learn and driven person my entire life AND will never, ever know everything I want to know or everything this industry has to offer. But, kiddo, that's absolutely ok. Ask yourself what kind of engineer you want to be; an '-' engineer who has an incredibly broad spectrum of knowledge, a 'I' engineer who knows one thing really really deeply, or more of a 'T' engineer that has a pretty broad spectrum of knowledge and an deep understanding of one technology. Then, plan your course. Take a page out of agile development to maintain your personal sanity; define a 1-month goal, then define a series of 1-day tasks that'll get you there. Be reasonable with your expectations and work through your task list. You'll begin feeling accomplishment as you chip away from the tasks and you'll see progress. That, in itself, will reduce your stress (I believe). As I'm closing in on 50, and my own learning speed slows, it's counterbalanced with the ability of applying new technologies and knowledge with existing knowledge and fundamentals. Consider this; an experienced pilot is likely quicker to learn a new aircraft than an inexperienced younger pilot. I believe knowledge workers have the same advantage. Keep you chin up, plot a course, execute your plan and keep your eye on the ball.

Nice to come across an appreciation of makefiles, often intimidating and frustrating to many but I feel it's a great use wrt video processing.

Agreed. The 'gex' filter can readily accomplish the masking if the shape can be represented as an X,Y equation. This method does however work for a more comprehensive list of shapes, titled wrt circular since that seems to be a highly desired form of <i>cropping</i>. Thank you for pointing it out and likely would address the aliasing another reader referenced.