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 see slower overall app performance when stacking/integrating in beta28. In beta22 I could stack 242 light frames with 25x of flat, dark flat, and bias in about 7 minutes. Now in beta28 the same stack took about 17 minutes. Did something change in the backend of APP?
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EDIT by Mabula: Solved, testing shows same speed, so not slower performance
This topic was modified 3 years ago by Mabula-Admin
Not sure if you are running on a Mac, but I also wanted to understand the impact (performance or otherwise) of disabling the Metal Framework on MacOS 14 (Sonoma).Â
I followed the link provided in the release notes and from what I could gather the person experiencing this issue was running Sonoma on unsupported hardware (from 2012) using OpenCore patcher software.
 The support person justifiably refused to support this issue.
I apologise if I am mistaken, but if this is correct, then that is the risk of hacking an OS with unsupported software so that it can run on unsupported hardware, and I would be disappointed if all Mac users take a hit because of this.
To be clear, I would fully support any negative performance impact (if there is one) if it enables all Mac users running an up-to-date OS version supported by their hardware, to properly run APP. Â
This post was modified 3 years ago 5 times by Garth Hunt
I see slower overall app performance when stacking/integrating in beta28. In beta22 I could stack 242 light frames with 25x of flat, dark flat, and bias in about 7 minutes. Now in beta28 the same stack took about 17 minutes. Did something change in the backend of APP?
I am not aware of such a significant slowdown, but I will do some testing. On which mac computer are you comparing? Is it Apple Silicon or Intel? Oh, maybe it is on Windows or Linux?
Mabula
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This post was modified 3 years ago by Mabula-Admin
Not sure if you are running on a Mac, but I also wanted to understand the impact (performance or otherwise) of disabling the Metal Framework on MacOS 14 (Sonoma).Â
I followed the link provided in the release notes and from what I could gather the person experiencing this issue was running Sonoma on unsupported hardware (from 2012) using OpenCore patcher software.
 The support person justifiably refused to support this issue.
I apologise if I am mistaken, but if this is correct, then that is the risk of hacking an OS with unsupported software so that it can run on unsupported hardware, and I would be disappointed if all Mac users take a hit because of this.
To be clear, I would fully support any negative performance impact (if there is one) if it enables all Mac users running an up-to-date OS version supported by their hardware, to properly run APP. Â
That link only shows that the metal framework is broken in Sonoma for another application as well. That link has nothing to do with Astro Pixel Processor nor it's code 😉
But, please now, that disabling or enabling the metal framework has zero = 0 influence on APP's speed. The metal framework when enabled only is used for drawing the 2D interface of APP, so it draws APP's buttons and such. It does not render the image data, we use OpenGL for that.
I am 100% sure that disabling metal has no down effect on APP's performance to be clear 😉
@mabula-admin I am running on Windows 11 23H2 Version 10.0.22631 Build 22631 with an Intel i9 13900K. The only reason I updated from Beta22 to 28 is out of curiosity to test new versions. I will roll back to Beta22 right now to see if the issue persists and report back.
Hi George @digug, I performed a couple of benchmarks myself, and beta28 has same speed as earlier beta's. Maybe you are using different settings now, for instance advanced normalization will add some time and enabling MBB or LNC for instance as well.
@mabula-admin I remember not toying with the settings much back then and even last night when I tested I reset all to defaults, then enabled MBB 5%. Also on the RAW tab depending on the light frame data, I use HAOIII Color for my narrowband filter and Adaptive Airy Disc for the broadband filter.
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Oddly though, this morning I stacked 677 light frames with 25xF, DF, and Bias, and it also took about 20min. Strange huh?
