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,
IMHO, the new naming of Normalize modes is a bit confusing/counterintuitive...
"overlap area" - would be good for mosaics since the panels usually overlap 10-20%
"full image" - would be good for regular integrations where panels fully overlap
But, regardless, currently the default mode is "full image" which is supposed to be for mosaics.
Please change the default to "overlap area".
Or I am wrong?
Thanks!
Max
Thank you very much for your question. Full image is default, because in all situations it will give robust/reliable results. The overlap mode is only recommended in certain situations, because it can lead to bad results in some cases, like an overlap area with a bright object in there.
So actually, you are mistaken here (of course caused by the internal APP changes), the normalization engine has been improved in the latest versions and also the tooltips in the normalization engine. Overlap mode (similar to the old advanced mode ) is good when you have plenty of overlap (25+ %) between the frames. But if you only have 5-25% overlap, the full image mode actually is much better now. This is because the normalization parameters are now calculated differently. The found locations and dispersions are more robust and more reliable. If I run a 3x3 mosaic with only 10% overlap, the full image normalization is way superior to the overlap normalization.
Let me know if this clarifies it 😉
See the new tooltip:
Mabula
Mabula -Â
Sorry - I am still confused...
"Choose the overlap mode if you are not running a mosaic"
i.e. I need to choose the overlap mode (not the full image) for regular integrations.
Yet, the full image is used as the default.
I do mosaics quite often but the majority of my integrations are regular integrations and not mosaics.
Thanks!
Hi @maxthebuilder,
You are most welcome.
For regular data, the difference between using overlap mode and full-image mode will be very minor with the new calculations. I suspect that you can not see the difference in the integrated result, can you? Theoretically, the overlap mode will be slightly better though, with the downside of somewhat slower processing because it needs more operations.
Full image is default, because in all situations it will give robust/reliable results and it is faster. The overlap mode is only recommended in certain situations, because it can lead to bad results in some cases, like a small overlap area with a bright object in there.
Hope that fully clarifies why full image normalization is the default.
Mabula
