2026-10-09 APP 2.0.0-beta48 has been released !
This is mainly a bug fix release for the reported bugs in beta47. In addition it has a significant User Interface performance improvement noticable when you need to process 1000s of images in APP.
2026-10-03 APP 2.0.0-beta47 has been released !
This is a very big release... many code optimizations/rewrites, many parts of APP are much faster and more precise, especially star analysis and registration are much faster ! Big mosaics will go much faster 🙂
And we introduce a new preview filter, which includes the new Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch and a General Levels Stretch, this has been long over due. The old preview filter (the panel on the right side to stretch and preview your data) has not been updated for a couple of years and it is a critical part of any APP session.
Adaptive Deep Sky Stretch or ADSS is a much more intuitive stretch algorithm. It is also color preserving (which is a great new addition in itself ! ) which means that the highlights are no longer bleached, color is maintained from the linear data while stretching. You can simply stretch your data using the sky background level and signal width sliders which work much easier and more intuitive. You no longer need to fiddle with the old complicated sliders with zoom buttons. All the zoom buttons for the sliders are made redundant. And you can enter slider values in the slider value fields yourself. I will make a youtube video in the coming days to explain and fully introduce ADSS. Once the video is ready, it will be highlighted on the forum.
RGB Combine upgrade !. The RGB Combine Tool has been rewritten mostly. The tool is faster and easier to use and most importantly, the Luminance slider to inject a luminance channel or channels into the RGB composite is now working correctly. It no longer bleaches the RGB colors. Combined with the new ADSS preview, you will get much better and easier great composites with great color! I will also explain this in a new youtube video.
Hi,
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A suggestion: shipping an extra HiDPI version of the linux release is unneccasary. Instead the normal version could be shipped with a second desktop file in /usr/share/applications/, essentially the same as astropixelprocessor.desktop now, but with a few lines changed like this:
Name=Astro Pixel ProcessorName (HiDPI) GenericName=Astro Pixel Processor (HiDPI) Exec=env GDK_SCALE=2 /opt/astropixelprocessor/astropixelprocessor %U
The GDK_SCALE environment variable is read by AWT/Swing and has the same effect as
-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2.0
Hi Janos @lenart,
Okay, that is also very helpfull indeed ! So that solution should have 100% the same effect on all linux distributions then? That is awesome and saves us a bit of work in deploying new versions 😊Â
Mabula
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@mabula-admin, as far as I know it has the same effect, at least on anything running Gnome. Unfortunately I do not have ready access to other desktops running distros other than Debian, so I can't be sure of that.
Perhaps a safer way is to modify that launcher script a little (line 20):
$JAVA $JVMDefaultOptions $JVMExtraOptions -cp $JVMClassPath com.ariesproductions.astropixelprocessor.AstroPixelProcessor $@
and add a HiDPI desktop file that sets that variable:
Exec=env JVMExtraOptions=-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=2.0 /opt/astropixelprocessor/astropixelprocessor %U
Thanks a lot Janos, @lenart !
I will definitely try to have this nicely implemented for the 2.0.0-beta2 release 😉
Mabula
Hi Janos @lenart,
Excellent, thank you very much for this suggestion.
I have implemented it like you indicated. The installers for both DEB and RPM have 2 desktop files now, 1 for HiDPI support with scale=2.0, the other with default scale=1.0. And the startup script uses the extra JVM option.
It works nicely for both RPM and DEB distributions giving the user the choice how to run APP with only 1 installer which is really nice 🙂
Thanks a lot!
Mabula
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