Windows Server and Image Quality

Hello all,

I have a question regarding running RC on VMs running Windows Server. I have noticed, in both WS 2016 and 2012 R2, that DNG images viewed in 2D (both thumbnails and whole image) have got a discolored and grainy quality as compared to the original photos - both viewed on my local machine and on Windows Photo Viewer within the Windows Server environments.

I thought that this was just a display issue, until I ran alignment on the same non-georeferenced dataset both on my local machine and the VMs. 

On the VMs, the alignment was very fast, but RC was not able to align all the camera poses - largest component was ~50% of the imageset and produced several smaller components at different scales and in different locations.

On the local machine, the alignment took much longer, but was a total success: 100% of the images in a single component.

This leads me to believe that the quality of the images is not only a display issue but that they are being input to the process in this altered state. On to my questions:

  1. Is the assumption I just stated correct?
  2. What version of Windows Server is considered best for running RC - 2008, 2012, or 2016?
  3. Is it possible to run RC on a Debian-based VM?

Thanks in advance -  and keep up the good work you guys - great software suite.

DDI