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.
Hello,Â
I currently use a Dell optioned 9020m with 16 gb ram and intel i7 4th gen processor (2.2ghz) with 8 virtual threads. For $1200, I can upgrade to a 16 gb ram Apple M1 laptop. Hopefully there are some people using the Apple M1 and can testify to pros and cons of the computer and running APP. Thank you.Â
Hi Nicholas,
Is it worth to upgrade, that is a good question. They obviously are very different machines, you'd have to get used to working with MacOS for instance. The M1 is surprisingly fast in general and in that sense would be a nice upgrade to your current system. APP does work on the M1 and reports I've heard are that it's running well. However, it's not yet native to the M1, which means it can run faster and better when we do release the native version (this will take a bit of time still as we're waiting on the M1 release of the Java JDK we're using)
Downsides of the M1 I think are; you can't upgrade the memory, so the 16GB will remain the max and you require dongles for other ports you might need besides the few usb-c ports available. Other than that it's very nice, not for me at the moment, but not bad at all. Personally I'd wait for the update to the M1 line, which might be at the end of this year.
Â
Hi,
I had trouble loading dng files using app1.083-beta2 on a apple mac mini M1, I don't know if 1.082 has the same issue, or even if it has anything to do with app. I understand this is going to be solved and had to do with the java kernel? Not sure. But it failed for me.
@ah_astro That's likely, depending on the issue, another problem. Probably unrelated to the M1 itself.
@vincent-mod I don't know what exactly causes the error. I was told it had to do with the Libraw library and Apple not trusting it's old development system on it's M1 computers. Mabula told me app needed adaption regarding this. I have no information if this has been patched.
Ah, ok, so maybe something specific to the dng format then and libraw. Might be something, but I didn't hear more about that, probably because most use fits to work with.
@vincent-mod
Possibly,
I interpreted Mabula that (for the current M1, non native application) anything using libRaw (using Rosetta) was bound to fail. dng, arw....
I agree that it is very likely that if fits had been a problem it would be a more common error.
Ah ok, that might make sense indeed. Good you pointed that out! Fits is something APP does internally so that would explain why that works.
