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 saw an announcement over a year ago about this but not sure if it was ever implemented. I have an i7 mac mini and could add an external GPU, but it doesn't make sense if GPU is not supported yet.Â
Not yet no, this is a big operation. We first switch to a new Java version. Vulkan support is something we want to have, but that's rather complex. So for now it doesn't add a lot of speed to have a beefy GPU, I also think that when we have that support, a regular GPU will already proof to be faster. So my suggestion would be to wait for that investment. Please also first check with us by then if the external GPU is possible, just to avoid issues there.
@vincent-mod
Check this link:
https://darkskies.space/pixinsight-starnet-cuda/
Starnet works very fast with CUDA but your program runs slowly with CPU.
It would be good if you could make support for GPU available, as it would greatly improve the program's speed and user comfort.
Yes, like I mention in the comment above, we are going to implement that but it's a big operation. 🙂
On the off chance are there any rough dates for gpu support?
I.e. Q2 2022?
Im just trying to work out if I should upgrade my Cpu now or wait for GPU support 🙂Â
Sorry, impossible for me to judge. I know we want to start some small tests this year, but I really can't predict how that will go. I think, if you have a relatively decent GPU already, it will become faster anyway when supported. A good multi-code CPU is always nice to have also for APP.
