MAY 4 2026: APP 2.0.0-beta44 has been released !
New improved internal memory controls should now work on all computers
May 1 2026: APP 2.0.0-beta43 has been released !
Improved internal memory controls (much more stable and faster on big datasets), fixed CPU image viewer, fixed Narrowband extraction demosaic algortihms.
Apr 29 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta42 has been released !
New improved Normalization engine, Fixed random crashes in integration, fixed RGB Combine & Calibrate Star Colors, fixed Narrowband extraction algorithms, new development platform with performance gains, bug fixes in the tools, etc...
Apr 14 2026: Google Pay, Apple Pay & WeChat Pay added as payment options
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
What is the recommended workflow for a modified (monochrome) Sony a6300 camera?
(The camera has the stock sensor, but the Bayer color filter array has been removed. This is only a mechanical modification to the sensor. Electronics and firmware are not altered.)
Initially I will only take wide-band images with this monochrome sensor, so think of it as a black and white/panchromatic camera. (But the internal electronics will create a RAW file with the three RGB channels)
Do I open the RAW files using the 'no interpolation' algorithm? Do I then need to combine the three channels of image data to make a single channel/monochrome image?
If I want to bin the images 2x2, would it be a good idea to first open the RAW files with the super pixel algorithm?
(Eventually I will probably do some tri-color imaging using wide-bandpass filters, but for now I want to start with simpler monochrome images.)
Thank you in advance,
Tom
@tomkrajci Tom, that is a very interesting question!
Choosing "no interpolation" will for sure process your data without trying to debayer it. APP will regard the data as monochrome data and there will be no need to combine channels because as far as APP is concerned there will be no channels.
Regarding 2x2 binning, no, don't use the super pixels algorithm. That will assume that your data needs debayering and that is not the case!
So "no interpolation" will work best and is all you need.
@wvreeven thank you for the info.
There will be times when I want to bin these monochrome images 2x2. If I should not use super pixel algorithm, how else can I bin 2x2?
Tom
@tomkrajci Tom, will you bin 2x2 the images while shooting or simply reduce the size of the resulting stack? If the former, you'll need raw calibration files that are binned 2x2 as well and then process normally. If the latter, simply scale down to 50% the resulting integration.Â
@wvreeven the Sony a6300 consumer APS-C camera has no option to bin on camera.
I want to bin to increase sensitivity as much as possible. (Yes, on-camera binning would be better because read noise is not included in the binning process.)
I get the feeling that rescaling to 50% merely resamples the image, it does not bin/add/combine pixels to boost sensitivity.
If I open an image using super pixel, it does bin the image, but also creates three color channels.
During integration is there an option to add all channels together into one?
That sounds like a bit of an awkward work flow, but it may improve my sensitivity compared to merely rescaling to 50%.
Or is there a super pixel algorithm that keeps things monochrome?
@tomkrajci Tom, since you are not processing color data you should not use any other algorithm than "no interpolation" as explained before. There is no other way to do software binning in APP at the moment than rescaling the integration result. Mabula is working on a 2x2 software binning algorithm which will be part of the next release. Until then please just stick with "no interpolation".
Mabula is working on a 2x2 software binning algorithm which will be part of the next release
This sounds like good news, thank you!
