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.
I am looking to get a new system soon and want to make sure that I get something that APP can take full advantage of. I'll be processing some very large subexposures (122MB from the ASI6200 Color and Mono). I would assume LOTS of memory, and LOTS of cores, but what about the GPU? Or if I have a good GPU, can I get fewer processing cores? How is the Vulkan & Metal (MacOS) API work related to this?
Right now I have a 4.2 Ghz i7 with 32G RAM and Radeon Pro 580 (8GB), and it will take pretty about 7 or 8 hours to fully process about 200 subs (5 nights). I'd like to get something that can speed that up. My assumption is that the GPU processing that is being worked on WILL add a major speed boost. So I want to be ready for that once it's available, but I would also like to get something that will work with the versions now.
Roy
I'll be watching this issue with great interest since I recently bought an ASI6200 mono as well and am looking to buy a new MacBook precisely for processing the images.
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Wouter
Well, that's already a nice setup so those sub exposures are large indeed. Basically it's all about the amount of cores, memory, disk speed and definitely for the future a nice GPU. I would advice to go for a desktop if possible as these tend to be cheaper in comparison to raw performance (and still have better performance overall anyway). The new Threadripper CPU's from AMD are amazing for this, then a nice M.2 SSD directly on your motherboard for the processing part, as much memory as you can put in and a good GPU. Basically any GPU would already give a speed boost when Vulkan is added and this should work on either NVidia or AMD. If you want to keep it with MacOS, also there a desktop would be better (though getting expensive very fast). If you do simply need a laptop, I would go for something like the new 16" Macbook. It has a dedicated graphics card.
You can also think about keeping MacOS as your work laptop and buying a Windows or Linux machine that you can spec to your need and upgrade parts on when needed. That might even be the cheapest option.
When Vulkan is added is not known to me, I do know it's a pretty complicated thing to add, so will take time.
