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.
We provide some benchmark comparisons below to give you an indication of the increase of performance that you can expect with APP 2.0.0. Please note that depending on the exact hardware and drivers, the results will be different. The graphs that are shown for the benchmark comparisons illustrate the memory usage of APP and thus shows the different behaviour of data throughput and consumption in the new APP version.
Data used for benchmarks:
IC1396a R,G,B, Ha, OII, SII data with pre-made calibration masters. 121 lights will be calibrated with 6 MasterFlats, 1 MasterDark and 1 Bad Pixel Map. We use default settings in all steps from 2) to 6) and simply click on 6)Integrate to start the test after having loaded all data. It is roughly 3GB of 16bit data that is processed from an asi1600 mono camera.
Â
Â
Benchmark comparison 1: 8GB RAM with 8 CPU Threads, Micron 9300 NVMe SSD (U2), Windows 10, APP 1.083.4 versus APP 2.0.0-beta1
APP 1.083.4 total processing time: 12min 02sec = 722 seconds
APP 2.0.0-beta1 total processing time: 9min 38sec =Â 578 seconds -> 578/722 = 0,80
APP 2.0.0-beta1 is 20% faster with 8GB RAM and 8 CPU Threads on Windows.
Â
Â
Â
Benchmark comparison 2: 30GB RAM with 30 CPU Threads, Micron 9300 NVMe SSD (U2), Windows 10, APP 1.083.4 versus APP 2.0.0-beta1
APP 1.083.4 total processing time: 10min 11sec = 611seconds
APP 2.0.0-beta1 total processing time: 7min 10sec = 430 seconds -> 430/611 = 0.70
APP 2.0.0-beta1 is 30% faster with 30GB RAM and 30 CPU Threads on Windows.
Â
Â
Â
Benchmark comparison 3: 30GB RAM with 16 CPU Threads, iMac Pro 2017 (INTEL), APP 1.083.4 versus APP 2.0.0-beta1
APP 1.083.4 total processing time: 10min 23sec = 623seconds
APP 2.0.0-beta1 total processing time: 8min 28sec = 508 seconds -> 508/623 = 0.81
APP 2.0.0-beta1 is 19% faster with 30GB RAM and 16 CPU Threads on macOS Intel.
Â
Â
Â
Benchmark comparison 4: 15GB RAM with 8 CPU Threads, mac mini M1 2020 (ARM), APP 1.083.4 versus APP 2.0.0-beta1
APP 1.083.4 total processing time: 17min 54sec = 1074 seconds
APP 2.0.0-beta1 total processing time: 9min 14sec = 554 seconds -> 554/1074 = 0.51
APP 2.0.0-beta1 is 49% faster with 15GB RAM and 8 CPU Threads on macOS ARM.
Â
Â
