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 just got a new camera and I am in the process of creating a set of Master Calibration files. As part of this process I am creating a new BadPixelMap. After running the Calibrate module APP output two BPM master files BPM-1 and BPM-2. It's been a while since I did this but I do not recall two files being created in the past. When I examine them it only looks like BPM-1 contains any information (BPM-1 shows a lot of bad pixels and BPM-2 doesn't appear to show any). So I have a couple of questions: What are the two files for and is it ok to delete BPM-2 (no apparent info) and just use BPM-1? Thanks
@batch Hi Bill,
What input data are you using for creating the BPM? Are there files that have a different temperature, gain, offset or exposure time than others? Are you loading all data into one session or two? Please try to give us as much information as possible.
Thanks, Wouter
Hi Bill,
have You checked the exposure times in the frame list? I came across a similar issue as the camare reports slightly different exposure times (e.g. 60s vs 61 s), hence APP would create 2 MasterDarks resulting in 2 BPM's.
You can avoid this by unchecking the "seperate darks acc. to exposure time box at the very bottom of tab 2) (You need to watch out not to throw in lights with really different exposure time, though , e.g. 60s vs 120s), which would require individual Masterdarks.
Hope this helps,
Jochen
@wvreeven Hi Wouter
I've tried multiple variations by processing individual channels/single session to multiple channels/single session. All temps and gain are the same on a per channel basis and darks match lights. I have tried setting the BPM parameters myself as well as running it with the automatic option selected. I am using vr 2.0.0beta4. Regardless of what iteration I run it still results in two BPMs being produced. One thing of note is that I am reporting a Hot Pixel count of about 2.7% and 0% Cold pixel count so I'm wondering if BPM-1 which clearly shows multiple pixels is the Hot pixels and BPM-2 which shows nothing (flat white) is the Cold pixels. Would this make sense? If so I could discard BPM-2 and just use BPM-1 going forward.
@jochen-scharmann Hi Jochen,
Thanks very much for the suggestion. I did check the exposure times and everything matches as well and in every instance only one MasterDark was created.Â
Regards,
Bill
