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 have a Network Attached Storage box so that I can cheaply store bazillions of image files. If need be, I can copy things to and from my laptop's SSD for processing, but I wonder if it's the file mapper that's dogging so badly. If I set the working folder to one on my local device, and then created a symlink to the remote folder with the files, think that would speed things up? (Not sure my OS can actually do that, but it might be worth a try.)
Alternatively, can I tell APP to use a location other than the working directory for fast cached storage such as (I imagine) the file mapper?
Processing via a NAS over a network will be incredibly slow as APP is using disk access a lot. A SSD locally is then optimal. A symlink to the NAS will then be the same thing, it still needs to access the files over the network.
Maybe a raid 0 or 1 (or 10 if you have >4 disks) and a SSD Cache disk can speed up the things a little bit ...
Best,
Luciano
