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.
2026-10-03- UPDATE FROM MABULA
I am glad to announce that I am finally fully healed, my energy and strength are really back now !
In the past 3 weeks while recovering, I have prioritzed the release of 2.0.0-beta47. So much work has accumulated into this release that it needed to be tested extensively, but also it needed to be available for all of you. Unless a big problem is reported for this release, I expect it will be the final release, finally !, before the official 2.0.0 release.
It would be nice to have a better indication of the zoom-status of a slider, not sure how exactly, but when performing an entire post-processing flow and then looking back at the panel at a glance, I can't see their settings very clearly.
Yes, I was thinking about that myself, I think a zoom number instead of the + and - signs would do it.
Zoom 1 = no zoom
and higher values would indicate more zooming I propose. Then you immediately see how strong you are zoomed with the sliders.
Agree? Or would you know of another way?
Mabula
That might be nice, or maybe graphically, just below the slider. With a bar that shrinks the more you zoom in?
SGP and Photoshop indicate Zoom as a percentage. Â I'm not exactly sure what defines 100% zoom (In SGP, a bin 1x1 image shows the full image at 25%), but I think a percentage indication (instead of a Zoom level number) might be more consistent with how most APers are accustomed to seeing zoom levels.Â
Scott
Hi Scott,
We are possibly mixing things up here 😉
Vincent was referring to the zoom function of the sliders in the preview filter below the histogram.
The + and - buttons can be used to zoom in on the sliders range. In the case of 32bits data, you can zoom in with a factor of 16^5 = 1048576 by clicking 5 times on a + button. It will enable you to use the slider with a 1/millionth precision. Something which you sometimes need to do to get the most pleasing stretch in high quality (high SNR) integrations.
I think you are refer to zooming in/out of the image viewer window? Maybe we should opena seperate topic for this as an RFC, with the request to show the zoom percentage some where and possibly the option to directly zoom in with a certain %.
Normally 100% zoom would mean that the pixels of the image match the pixels of your screen/monitor in size.
Mabula
I think Scott did understand what I was talking about, but he puts forward yet another possibility. So zooming into the slider range 5x would equal 500% to be displayed instead.
Thank you Vincent,
Okay, but for the zoom slider this would become a tremendously large %, since you can zoom in with a factor of 16^5 (16 to the power of 5) which is roughly a million times.
There is no room to put such a number in, I think it needs to be a single number which makes it clear instantly. I would propose to show the power.
If you click once on "+" you are zoomed in with a factor of 16^1 = 16 , so we would show 1
If you click twice on "+" you are zoomed in with a factor of 16^2 = 256, so we would show 2
etc...
For the image viewer window though, a percentage is clearly what most APers are used to.
Mabula
