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.
Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta44 release notes
- FIXED NEW MEMORY CONTROLS / FASTER AND MORE STABLE ON BIG DATASETS
We have further improved the new internal memory controls. APP should have lower latency now and should no longer stall/pause/freeze while processing big datasets. This fix should ensure that it works on all computers now.
To make APP run faster and more stable on big datasets, the new memory controls can no longer fragment the internal memory of APP. That caused the slowing down of APP in older versions. Latency of the application has improved as well. When APP starts now, it will report how much memory it can use safely without compromising the stability of the Operating System. It reports the maximum memory and also a soft maximum memory value. While processing, the soft maximum memory should not be crossed unless APP really needs the memory for a very intensive memory task after which it can never cross the maximum memory threshold. After any task, APP should also gradually release the used memory again back to the Operating System. On computers with little RAM memory (less than 16GB of RAM), the soft maximum and maximum will almost be equal or equal. On systems with plenty of RAM (more than 64GB of RAM), the soft maximum will be fixed at 32GB of RAM which should ensure fast and stable processing without consuming too much memory which can slow things down.
This is a further improvement over the below release note from beta43, this change and improvement should now work on all computers.
- IMPROVED INTERNAL MEMORY CONTROLS / FASTER AND MORE STABLE ON BIG DATASETS
As reported here : https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/main-forum/randomly-stopping-freezing-during-integrations/#post-34236 APP could stall/slow down or even freeze when processing big to very big datasets (500+ frames). The lastest APP releases have many code optimizations making it quite a bit faster, but the memory clean up internally was not able to keep up with all the GigaBytes of data that were processed. The old memory controls internally were fragmentating the memory causing these instability issues now and more quickly as well. Luckily, we are able to prevent this fragmentation completely by using a very different memory configuration internally. Technically, we have switched APP from using java's default G1 garbage collector with many G1 tweaks to using the more advanced Z garbage collector. This proves to be much better for data throughput and stability. Processing big datasets should not slow down APP at all anymore after having done several 100s of frames in integration.
