Skip to content

FITS Blaster 1.19.5

Choose a tag to compare

View all tags
@github-actions github-actions released this 04 Apr 11:43
· 67 commits to main since this release
v1.19.5
13a4935

Changelog

All notable changes to FITS Blaster are recorded here.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.5 switch CI to Xcode 26, restore @Concurrent

Improved

  • CI now builds with Xcode 26.3 (previously Xcode 16.4). @concurrent pipeline annotations and SWIFT_APPROACHABLE_CONCURRENCY are fully effective under Xcode 26 and no longer cause the slowdown seen with the older compiler.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.4 concurrency revert

Fixed

  • Reverted all @concurrent annotations back to nonisolated. The @concurrent attribute causes a ~2× slowdown when compiled with Xcode 16 (Swift 6.0/6.1), regardless of whether SWIFT_APPROACHABLE_CONCURRENCY is enabled. Restores the pipeline throughput of 1.19.1.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.3 concurrency performance hotfix

Fixed

  • Disabled SWIFT_APPROACHABLE_CONCURRENCY (SE-0461) to restore full pipeline throughput when built with Xcode 16.4. The @concurrent annotations added in 1.19.2 are silently ignored by the Xcode 16 compiler, causing nonisolated async functions to inherit @MainActor and serialise metrics computation. The @concurrent annotations are retained for forward-compatibility when the CI migrates to Xcode 26.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.2 concurrency performance fix

Fixed

  • Restored full parallel pipeline throughput when building with Xcode 26 (Swift 6.2). All async functions in the image loading, stretching, and metrics pipeline are now marked @concurrent, guaranteeing they always run on the cooperative thread pool rather than the main actor. This fixes a ~3× slowdown introduced by the Swift 6.2 SE-0461 concurrency model changes.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.1 progress bar and colour rendering fixes

Improved

  • Progress bars (Loaded, Metrics, Sampling, Colour) are now shown below the main image again, next to the elapsed-time indicator, instead of in the toolbar.
  • The currently selected image now switches to colour immediately when colour rendering begins, rather than waiting for its turn in the batch queue.
  • Release builds are now arm64-only, matching the GitHub-distributed binary and restoring native Apple Silicon performance for local builds.

2026-04-04 — v1.19.0 batch progress bars

Added

  • Batch progress bars in the toolbar during image loading: Loaded, Metrics, Sampling, and Colour bars show live progress for each pipeline phase and disappear automatically when complete.

Fixed

  • In Simple mode with a multi-folder session, folder sections now appear in the sidebar (previously only Geek mode showed folder groupings). Filter sub-headers within folders remain Geek-mode only.

2026-04-03 — v1.18.1 keyboard navigation follows sidebar order

Fixed

  • Keyboard navigation (↑/↓/Home/End/Shift+↑/Shift+↓) now steps through entries in the same order they appear in the thumbnail strip, not the flat sort order. In sessions with multiple filter types (Ha, OIII, SII), pressing ↓ now advances within the current filter group section before moving to the next, matching what you see on screen.
  • In multi-folder mode, keyboard navigation skips entries inside collapsed folder sections, so the cursor can no longer land on a hidden thumbnail.

2026-04-02 — v1.18.0 flag/deflag keys, toolbar & chart improvements

Added

  • F key: toggle flag/unflag on the current entry or orange range selection (configurable in Settings → Keyboard).
  • D key: deflag all — clears the entire flagged set in one keystroke (configurable).
  • (De)flag toolbar button: toggles the flag state of the current entry or orange range, always visible next to the Cancel button.
  • (De)flag and Deflag All items in the Select menu, separated from the range-selection commands by a divider.
  • Session chart brightness sliders in Settings → Display: independently control the opacity of rejected dots and non-flagged dots when a flagged set is active.
  • Tooltips on all toolbar buttons, session chart metric buttons, and sidebar sort button; tooltip delay reduced from ~1.5 s to 0.5 s.
  • Getting Started guide page on the website (guide.html) — full workflow walkthrough, interface overview, key hints, and tips.
  • Keyboard Shortcuts reference page on the website (keys.html) — all default bindings in one place.
  • Top-level navigation bar on all website pages, replacing scattered footer links.

Improved

  • Mode toggle button now shows Simple or Geek (the current mode) instead of a blank label, matching the Colour/Grey button convention.
  • Session chart brightness contrast: rejected dots now render at 15 % opacity and non-flagged dots at 50 %, making the three-level hierarchy (rejected → non-flagged → flagged/cursor) clearly readable.
  • Conflict detection for key bindings in Settings now correctly separates plain keys from ⌘-modifier keys, preventing false conflicts (e.g. plain D vs ⌘D).

Removed

  • File → Open File(s)… (⌘⇧O) menu item removed (the open-files path has sandbox limitations that prevent it from working reliably).

2026-04-01 — v1.17.1

Fixed

  • ⌘A, ⌘D, and ⌘I now operate on the orange range selection (consistent with ⇧+click and ⇧+arrow) rather than the flag set.

Improved

  • FAQ: ⌘A / ⌘D / ⌘I documented in the Flagged view entry and the keyboard shortcuts entry.

2026-04-01 — v1.17.0 selection redesign

Added

  • SO (SII+OIII) dual-narrowband filter group with emerald colour — recognises Askar C2 and similar filters.

Improved

  • Selection model fully redesigned for consistency: cursor (blue, always one frame) and range selection (orange, built with ⇧+click or ⇧+arrow) are now independent concepts with no side effects between views.
  • ⇧+click and ⇧+arrow build an orange range selection in any view (All or Selected).
  • ⌘+click adds the range (or single frame) to the Flagged view from All; removes it from Flagged view.
  • Reject acts on the orange range if one is active, otherwise on the cursor.
  • In the Flagged view, rejected frames stay visible (orange) so the reject can be undone immediately by pressing Reject again.
  • Session chart cursor dot is now white for instant position recognition; all other dots remain filter-group coloured.
  • Session chart cursor dot is smaller (less dominant); rejected frames always shown at 30% opacity.
  • Sidebar thumbnail shows a checkmark badge on flagged frames; orange border on range-selected frames.
  • FAQ: updated session chart and Flagged view entries to reflect new selection model; added full filter-group colour table with swatches.

2026-03-31 — v1.16.3 improvements

Added

  • Help menu: new "Ask Support" item opens the GitHub bug report form directly.

Improved

  • FAQ: added "What do the colours and brightness levels in the session chart mean?" entry explaining filter-group dot colours, dashed median lines, and the spotlight brightness hierarchy.
  • FAQ: corrected "What is the session chart?" — dot colour represents the filter group, not the quality badge.

2026-03-31 — v1.16.2 improvements

Fixed

  • Auto-Flag sheet: all "Reject if …" threshold labels corrected to "Select if …"; subtitle updated to "Flag frames below quality thresholds for review."
  • Cmd+Click in the Flagged view with an active multi-selection (e.g. after Cmd+A) now removes all selected entries at once instead of only the clicked one.

Improved

  • Session chart spotlight: when a multi-selection is active, non-selected dots dim to 0.40 opacity and rejected dots dim further to 0.15, creating a clear three-level brightness hierarchy (rejected → non-selected → selected).
  • Session chart drag-select now triggers the spotlight correctly (previously only sidebar Cmd/Shift-click selections activated it).
  • Auto-Flag sheet: SNR threshold is now enabled by default.

2026-03-31 — v1.16.1 bug fixes

Fixed

  • Website feature list said "drag-to-reject" and "Auto-reject" instead of "drag-to-select" and "Auto-select".
  • Folder count badge in the thumbnail sidebar showed the total file count regardless of the active view (All / Flagged / Rejected); it now reflects only the entries visible in the current view.
  • Metric buttons above the session chart (Score, FWHM, Ecc, SNR, Stars) did not visually indicate the selected button; the active metric now uses a filled (prominent) button style.
  • Cmd+Click in the Flagged view was toggling multi-selection instead of removing the entry from the selection; it now always unflag the clicked entry.
  • Shift-click multi-select did not work at first open until the user clicked the first thumbnail explicitly; the shift-click anchor is now seeded when the first image is auto-selected on load.

2026-03-29 — Include REJECTED: undo and selection fixes

Fixed

  • Undo reject now correctly moves files back to their pre-rejection folder when they were loaded via "Include REJECTED". Previously originalURL was set to the REJECTED path itself, so the move was a no-op.
  • Cmd+A (Select All) and other command-key shortcuts now work reliably across all keyboard layouts. The key monitor was using event.characters which can return a control character for Cmd+letter on some systems; switched to event.charactersIgnoringModifiers.
  • Thumbnail selection highlight now updates instantly after Cmd+A and other multi-selection operations. ThumbnailCell now observes selectedEntryIDs directly rather than relying on a parameter passed from the parent view.

2026-03-29 — v1.16 bug fixes and features

Fixed

  • Reset now always switches back to "All frames" mode (was left in Flagged/Rejected if active).
  • Cmd+click in "Flagged" mode with an active multi-selection now toggles the clicked entry instead of unflagging everything (unflag-on-cmd-click is still the default for single-entry actions).
  • Shift+click range selection now works from the very first open; it no longer requires re-clicking the first image first.
  • Session chart now enlarges dots for all multi-selected thumbnails, not just the focused entry.

Added

  • Sort by Rejected added to the thumbnail sort picker; rejected entries sort to the bottom (ascending) or top (descending), with alphabetical tie-breaking.
  • Cmd+R — Select All Rejected: selects all rejected frames in one keystroke. Configurable in Settings → Keyboard.
  • Colour/Grey toolbar button now shows a camera.filters icon (multicolour in colour mode, monochrome in grey mode) instead of plain text.
  • Ko-fi link added to the About FITS Blaster panel.
  • Opening a folder with the subfolders checkbox set differently from Settings now shows a one-time info alert pointing to Settings → Files & Folders.
  • Include REJECTED folder checkbox added to the Open Folder dialog; when ticked, FITS files inside the REJECTED/ subdirectory are loaded and automatically marked as rejected. A permanent toggle for this is in Settings → Files & Folders.
  • "How Scores Work" page added to the website, explaining background estimation, star detection, shape measurement, the composite score formula, and badge-colour logic.

2026-03-28 — Repository housekeeping

Improved

  • Source assets (Book of Galaxies.png/icns, installer-background.png) moved to resources/ and are now tracked.
  • Installer scripts moved to scripts/.
  • Screenshots tracked in Screenshots/.
  • .github/ added: bug report and feature request issue templates, and a release.yml workflow that builds, notarises, and uploads a DMG to GitHub Releases on version tags.
  • Removed stray DMG binary and legacy Simple Claude fits viewer.xcodeproj/ from disk.
  • .gitignore cleaned up; only built artefacts (bin/, site/Downloads/, *.dmg) remain excluded.

2026-03-28 — Track all remaining docs in repository

Improved

  • readiness.md moved to docs/internal/ and is now version-controlled. All markdown docs are now tracked.

2026-03-28 — Track public docs in repository

Improved

  • privacy-policy.md and RAW-support.md moved to docs/public/ and are now version-controlled.

2026-03-28 — Reorganise documentation layout

Improved

  • Markdown docs split into docs/public/ (user-facing) and docs/internal/ (developer notes).
  • Moved to docs/public/: FAQ.md.
  • Moved to docs/internal/: FWHM-comparison.md, Score.md, performance.md.

2026-03-28 — Track website in repository

Improved

  • site/ is now committed to the repository (Option A); site/Downloads/ remains gitignored so DMG binaries are never stored in git.

2026-03-27 — Fix main-thread I/O hang on file open

Fixed

  • Opening a folder no longer blocks the main thread on slow I/O (iCloud Drive materialisation,
    SMB mounts, heavy disk pressure). The BITPIX pre-flight check (peekBitpix) is now performed
    in a nonisolated background function instead of synchronously on the main actor, eliminating
    the spinning beach ball that occurred when files were stored in iCloud Drive.

2026-03-27 — Website updates

Added

  • site/changelog.html — full changelog web page styled to match the site, with colour-coded
    section labels (Added / Fixed / Improved / Changed / Removed).
  • Download button on homepage linking to Downloads/FITS-Blaster-1.15.dmg.
  • Changelog link in homepage footer.

Changed

  • Replaced App Store badge with Ko-fi donation link (https://ko-fi.com/tomvp).
  • FAQ "Subscription" section replaced with "Support & Donations" (free app, Ko-fi link).
  • FAQ "Does FITS Blaster require an internet connection?" updated: no longer mentions subscription.
  • FAQ "What data does FITS Blaster collect?" updated: no longer mentions App Store network requests.

2026-03-25 — Switch to donationware; remove StoreKit (v1.15)

Removed

  • PurchaseManager, PaywallView, and Configuration.storekit deleted entirely.
  • 50-frame free-tier cap removed from ImageStore.openFiles — all images load without restriction.
  • Subscription tab removed from Settings.
  • Paywall sheet and PurchaseManager environment removed from ContentView and FitsBlasterApp.

Fixed

  • Sandbox permission error on rejection: accessDirectory(for:) now falls back to creating a fresh
    security-scoped bookmark from the entry's parent directory when the stored bookmark is missing or
    stale. rejectEntry and undoRejectEntry now fail fast with a clear error message if directory
    access cannot be established, instead of proceeding silently without sandbox scope.

2026-03-25 — Flagged view + selection overhaul (v1.14)

Added

  • Flagged view — a dedicated sidebar filter that shows only flagged frames. Frames enter the list via ⌘+click, ⇧+click, chart drag-select, or Auto-Flag; ⌘+click inside the view removes them. Flagged frames persist across filter switches and are only cleared on folder reset.
  • Flag-then-inspect workflow — chart drag-select and Auto-Flag now add frames to the Flagged view instead of rejecting them immediately. Rejection happens explicitly inside the Flagged view after inspection.
  • Select menu — top-level menu with Select All, Deselect All, and Invert Selection, each with configurable key bindings (defaults: ⌘A / ⌘D / ⌘I).
  • Shift+↑/↓ extend selection — grows the multi-selection one step at a time using the configured navigation keys.
  • Configurable selection key modifiers — Settings → UI lets you choose ⌘ or ⌘⇧ independently for each selection shortcut.
  • Drag tooltip — while drag-selecting in the session chart, a floating label shows the metric value of the frame under the cursor.

Fixed

  • Arrow-key navigation (previous / next / first / last) now respects the active visibility filter, stopping at the boundary of the visible set rather than crossing into hidden frames.

Improved

  • Session chart left edge has breathing room before the first dot, making drag-select starting from frame 1 easier.

Updated

  • FAQ: new "What is the Flagged view?" entry; updated chart drag-select and Auto-Flag descriptions to reflect the new workflow.

2026-03-24 — Pipeline fix + toolbar buttons (v1.12.5)

Fixed

  • Geek-mode load time regression (100 s → 62 s on M1 Air, 592 images): GPU star-detection moved back to Phase B alongside Moffat fitting, keeping Phase A as I/O + GPU stretch only.
  • Phase B semaphore raised from max(2, cpuCount/4) to max(4, cpuCount-2) (2 → 6 on M1 Air), restoring Phase B throughput to match v1.12.3.
  • MTLBuffer is now retained through FastLoadResult and passed to Phase B directly, eliminating the intermediate crop-extraction step in Phase A.

Added

  • Colour/Grey toggle button in the toolbar (next to Reset); always enabled so the preference can be set before loading.
  • Cancel button in the toolbar (next to Reset); always visible, greyed out when no batch is running.

2026-03-24 — Phase A/B pipeline decoupling (v1.12.4)

Improved

  • Loading pipeline now decouples I/O from metrics computation. Phase A (FITS I/O + GPU stretch) extracts small 25×25 px star crops from the MTLBuffer before releasing it, then displays the image immediately. Phase B (Moffat fitting) runs in detached tasks bounded by an AsyncSemaphore, concurrently with subsequent Phase A tasks.
  • Phase A concurrency raised to max(8, cpuCount) (was max(4, cpuCount-2)) — keeps the SSD pipeline fuller since slots are no longer held by CPU-bound metrics work.
  • Peak memory reduced: the 100 MB MTLBuffer per image is released after crop extraction rather than being held for the full Phase A+B duration.
  • MetricsCalculator gains extractStarData(metalBuffer:) (Phase A) and measureFromCrops(starData:) (Phase B) as the new crop-based entry points.

2026-03-24 — GPU downscale + parallel Moffat fitting (v1.12.3)

Improved

  • Metal stretch kernels now downsample directly to display size (1024 px) in a single GPU pass using a box filter, eliminating the post-GPU CPU vImageScale step. Grey+Simple load time: 53 s → 28 s; Colour+Simple: 168 s → 82 s
  • Bayer colour kernel averages R, G, B pixels separately within each output footprint — alias-free demosaicing with no cross-channel contamination
  • Moffat star fitting (measureCandidates) now uses a 4-wide inner task group for both the shape-measurement pass (top 200 candidates) and the fast-FWHM count pass (up to 6 000 candidates), reducing Geek-mode Phase B time
  • Cancel button added to the info bar to abort an in-progress load; loading pipeline honours Task.isCancelled at each image boundary

2026-03-23 — Window commands, chart sorting & thumbnail metric (v1.12.2)

Added

  • File menu: Main Window (⌘N) — focuses the existing window or opens a new one if closed
  • Window menu: Close Window (⌘W) — explicit menu item alongside the built-in shortcut
  • Thumbnail cells now show the active chart metric value (e.g. "FWHM 4.2") in Geek mode

Changed

  • Session chart now follows the sidebar sort order — drag-to-reject selects contiguous worst/best frames when sorted by a metric

2026-03-16 — Post-subscribe auto-load & FAQ (v1.12.1)

Fixed

  • Remaining frames now load automatically after subscribing — no need to re-open the folder manually

Added

  • FAQ page on website (site/faq.html) with collapsible sections and jump navigation
  • Website favicon and Apple touch icon using the app icon

2026-03-14 — Freemium subscription & paywall (v1.12.0)

Added

  • Annual auto-renewable subscription (StoreKit 2) — PurchaseManager handles product loading, purchase flow, transaction listener, and receipt verification
  • Paywall sheet shown when the 50-frame free-tier limit is reached; dismissed automatically on successful purchase
  • Settings → Subscription tab: current plan status, subscribe button with live price, restore purchases, and manage subscription link
  • File menu: "Open Folder…" (⌘O) and "Open File(s)…" (⌘⇧O) commands wired to the active window via FocusedValues
  • Empty-state and chart placeholder copy updated to include the word "Blast"

Changed

  • Free tier capped at 50 frames per session; isUnlocked synced from PurchaseManager to ImageStore

2026-03-14 — Rename to FITS Blaster, FWHM investigation (v1.11.6)

Changed

  • Renamed source folder and all remaining references from "Claude FITS viewer" to "FITS Blaster"
  • Updated archive name, README, CHANGELOG header, and Metal file header

Added

  • FWHM-comparison.md documenting FWHM methodology and comparison against PixInsight, Siril, and AstroPixelProcessor

Fixed

  • Reverted erroneous ÷√2 FWHM scale factor for Bayer images; empirical testing confirmed no correction is needed — values agree with PixInsight within ±10% for both narrowband and broadband OSC images

2026-03-11 — Session chart layout fixes (v1.11.5)

Fixed

  • Folder pills wrap instead of overflowing when many folders are loaded — uses a new WrappingChips flow layout.
  • Empty space to the right of the chart removed — median RuleMark trailing annotations were reserving a right-side margin; they are now omitted (the colour legend in the header already identifies each group).
  • X axis no longer rounds up — chart domain is now constrained to exactly the number of loaded frames, eliminating the gap at the right edge.

2026-03-11 — Fix duplicate entries and subfolder name collisions (v1.11.4)

Fixed

  • Duplicate entries: opening the same folder twice no longer adds duplicate frames — files already in the session are silently skipped.
  • Same-directory warning: opening an already-loaded folder now shows an alert ("Folder Already Loaded") before proceeding, so the user can cancel if it was accidental.
  • Subfolder name collision: loading two root folders that both contain a subfolder named e.g. lights no longer merges them into one section. Each is now tracked by its fully qualified path (Session A / lights, Session B / lights) and shown as a separate section in the sidebar and chart.

2026-03-09 — Fix keyboard shortcuts not working after sidebar click (v1.11.3)

Fixed

  • Navigation and action keys (arrow keys, reject, etc.) now work regardless of which subview has keyboard focus. Previously, clicking a thumbnail in the sidebar moved focus to the List, causing all key bindings to produce the macOS error chime. Replaced onKeyPress (requires the host view to be first responder) with an NSEvent local monitor that intercepts key events before the responder chain.

2026-03-09 — Colour toggle UX improvements (v1.11.2)

Fixed

  • Instant grey on first toggle back: when starting in colour mode, the initial greyscale render (always computed first during load) is now cached in cachedGreyscaleDisplay. Toggling back to grey after the initial grey→colour startup cycle is instant with no file re-reads.
  • Immediate status message: "Rendering colour…" now appears instantly when pressing 'c', before the clip computation phase begins, instead of only after ~10 seconds of silent work on large batches.

2026-03-09 — View menu fixes + colour toggle cache

Added

  • Colour/greyscale render cache: toggling colour mode now caches both the greyscale and colour renders per Bayer image. After the first toggle, subsequent switches are instant (no file re-reads). Initial greyscale load is pre-cached so the very first toggle to colour only needs one pass. Memory overhead is ~3 MB per image (downscaled display size).

Fixed

  • Duplicate View menu: Simple Mode and Colour Images commands are now injected into the system View menu via CommandGroup(after: .sidebar) instead of creating a second View menu with CommandMenu.
  • Greyed-out View menu items: switched from focusedValue/@FocusedValue to focusedSceneValue (set side) so bindings propagate to menu commands regardless of which subview holds keyboard focus.
  • View menu keyboard shortcuts: Simple Mode and Colour Images now display the user-configured key binding in the menu (read from AppSettings via focused scene values) instead of the hardcoded ⌘⇧M.
  • Toolbar tooltip: Simple/Geek mode toggle button now shows the actual configured key in its tooltip instead of the hardcoded ⌘⇧M.

Changed

  • "Rendering colour…" / "Rendering greyscale…" status is suppressed entirely on subsequent toggles when cached renders are available.

2026-03-08 — Bayer debayering + chart improvements (v1.11)

Added

  • GPU Bayer debayering: colour FITS images (BAYERPAT/COLORTYP/CFA_PAT header) can now be displayed in colour using a single-pass Metal compute shader (bayerDebayerAndStretch). Bilinear demosaicing with per-channel percentile stretch eliminates green cast. Toggle in Settings → Image Display.
  • Per-folder colour normalisation: Bayer images load as greyscale first (instant display), then after the full batch is loaded the app computes per-channel median clip bounds per subfolder and re-renders all images in colour with a consistent shared stretch. File re-reads are fast from the warm OS page cache.
  • BayerPattern enum with rOffset bit-encoding and automatic FITS header detection.
  • Resizable session chart: replaced VSplitView with a custom drag handle; chart height defaults to 200 px and is remembered across launches via @AppStorage.
  • Dynamic y-axis: the chart's y-axis now starts near the data minimum (with 10% padding) rather than at zero, so data fills the available chart height.

Changed

  • Settings gains a new Image Display tab containing Sizes and Colour Images settings (moved from User Interface).
  • Settings window height reduced now that User Interface tab is shorter.

2026-03-08 — Fix 'Include subfolders' checkbox in Open Folder panel

Fixed

  • The "Include files from subfolders" checkbox in the Open Folder panel now works correctly. The SwiftUI/@Observable accessory view didn't wire up bindings properly outside a SwiftUI window hierarchy; replaced with a plain AppKit NSButton checkbox which reads back reliably after runModal() returns.

2026-03-08 — Settings reorganisation + key conflict detection (v1.10)

Changed

  • Settings tabs renamed and reorganised: "Keys" → User Interface (now also contains Appearance and Sizes); "Images" → Files & Folders (subfolders only).
  • Apply button moved inside the Sizes section so it visually groups with the size fields.
  • Open Folder panel: "Include files from subfolders" checkbox is now always visible without needing to click "Show options".

Added

  • Key conflict detection: trying to assign a key already used by another binding beeps and keeps the recorder open so the user can choose a different key.

2026-03-08 — Font size control (v1.9)

Added

  • Text Size picker in Settings → User Interface: a System Settings–style row of seven "A" buttons (xSmall → xxxLarge). Changes take effect instantly across the whole UI.
  • Custom fontSizeMultiplier environment key and scaledFont(size:weight:monospaced:) ViewModifier (AppFont.swift) replace all hard-coded .font(.caption) calls throughout the app.
  • Buttons and toggles use explicit Text labels so macOS native controls also respond to font scaling.

2026-03-08 — Recursive subfolder support (v1.9)

Added

  • Include files from subfolders setting (Settings → Files & Folders, default off). When enabled, opening a folder recursively scans subdirectories for FITS files.
  • Excluded folder names list (default: FLAT, DARK, BIAS, CALIB). The REJECTED folder is always skipped regardless of this list.
  • Open Folder panel shows a pre-filled checkbox for the current setting; changes in the panel are session-only and do not write back to Settings.
  • Drag & drop respects the includeSubfolders setting.
  • Collapsible folder sections in the thumbnail sidebar: click a folder header to collapse/expand its entries, with an animated chevron.
  • Folder filter pills in the session chart strip: tap to show only frames from selected folders.
  • ImageEntry.subfolderPath stores the relative path from the opened root.

2026-03-07 — Skip float FITS files silently at scan time with alert

Fixed

  • Float FITS files (BITPIX < 0) no longer flash as a spinner in the sidebar before disappearing. FITSReader.peekBitpix(url:) reads only the first 2880-byte header block to check BITPIX before an ImageEntry is created; float files are skipped entirely in openFiles.
  • When one or more files are skipped, ImageStore.errorMessage is set, surfacing an alert that lists up to 5 filenames and a "and N more" suffix for larger batches.

2026-03-07 — Drop float FITS support; BZERO-only performance improvement

Removed

  • Float FITS images (BITPIX=-32, -64): parseHeader now validates BITPIX immediately and throws FITSError.unsupportedBitpix for any value outside {8, 16, 32}. The float byte-swap and double→float conversion code is removed from both readIntoBuffer and read. A float file now shows "Unsupported image format: floating-point FITS files (BITPIX=…)" in the sidebar.

Improved

  • BZERO-only path uses vDSP_vsadd instead of vDSP_vsmsa: integer FITS files always have BSCALE=1. The common BZERO≠0 case (e.g. BITPIX=16 with BZERO=32768) now runs a vectorized add-only pass rather than multiply+add, saving one multiply per pixel across the full image.

2026-03-07 — Add configurable Remove-from-List key (R)

Added

  • Remove selected image(s) from list (ImageStore.removeSelected): removes the current selection from entries without touching files on disk. After removal the next entry in sorted order is selected, or the previous one if the removed block was at the end. Works with single and multi-select.
  • Configurable key binding (AppSettings.removeKey, default R): stored in UserDefaults, shown as "Remove from List" in Settings → Keyboard.

2026-03-07 — SNR in Auto-Flag panel + filename above image + toolbar cleanup

Added

  • SNR threshold in Auto-Flag panel: new "Signal-to-Noise (SNR)" section in AutoRejectSheet. Relative mode rejects frames whose SNR falls below a chosen fraction of the per-group median (default 50%); absolute mode rejects below a fixed floor (default 20, slider 5–1000 to match the peak/σ scale where typical values run 10–500+). GroupStats gains medianSNR; both branches of previewAutoReject now check config.useSNR.
  • Filename above the main image: shown in MainContent with caption font, middle-truncation, and a divider below. Makes the current frame clear when multiple thumbnails are selected.

Changed

  • Toolbar: the filename label between Reset and Auto-Flag has been removed (now shown above the image instead). The "N selected" multi-select counter is still shown in the toolbar when more than one thumbnail is selected.

2026-03-07 — Multi-select thumbnails for batch reject / undo

Added

  • Multi-select in the thumbnail sidebar: click to select a single image as before; Cmd+click to toggle individual entries in or out of the selection; Shift+click to range-select from the last clicked entry to the clicked entry. All selected thumbnails are highlighted.
  • Batch reject / undo: when more than one thumbnail is selected, the reject key rejects all non-rejected entries in the selection; the undo key restores all rejected entries in the selection. The toggle-reject key rejects non-rejected or undoes all-rejected depending on state.
  • Selection count in toolbar: when multiple entries are selected, the filename label becomes "N selected".
  • Keyboard navigation (↑/↓/Home/End) clears the multi-selection.

2026-03-07 — Remove star rating system + add configurable Simple/Geek mode toggle key

Removed

  • Star rating system: removed RatingView, all 1–5 star rating key bindings, the Rating section in Settings, ImageEntry.rating, setRating, loadSidecarRatings, saveSidecar, the .rating sort order, and the minimum-rating filter from the Export sheet. The CSV export header is updated (rating column removed). .culling.json sidecar files are no longer written.

Added

  • Configurable Simple/Geek mode toggle key (AppSettings.toggleModeKey): defaults to G. Assignable in Settings → Keyboard. Toggles isSimpleMode on key press, same as the existing ⌘⇧M menu shortcut and toolbar button.

2026-03-07 — Fix star counts ~38% too low + rename app to Claude FITS Viewer

Fixed

  • Star counts ~38% too low for BITPIX=16 images (MetricsCalculator.measureFWHMOnly + measureCandidates): two root causes, both fixed.

    1. Wing pre-filter threshold too aggressive: minWing = peak × 0.15 was rejecting real stars. For a Moffat β=4 PSF with FWHM ≈ 2 px detected 0.5 px off-centre in Y, the Y-direction immediate neighbours carry only ~10% of the detected peak flux — right below the 15% cutoff. This caused ~38% of real stars to fail the pre-filter and return FWHM = 0. Lowered threshold to peak × 0.05: a real star with FWHM ≥ 1.3 px has ≥ 8% flux in each neighbour even when off-centre, so all real stars pass. An isolated noise spike at 5σ has P(all 4 neighbours > 0.25σ) ≈ 2.6%, so most noise is still rejected.

    2. Extrapolation amplified any residual noise: Phase 2 sampled ~600 of the ~49 700 remaining candidates and extrapolated rate × 49 700. Even a 1% noise false-positive rate adds ~497 phantom stars, and the multiplication by the huge tail makes the count extremely sensitive to the pre-filter threshold. Replaced sample+extrapolate with a direct sequential count of allCandidates.dropFirst(200).prefix(6000): since candidates are sorted brightest-first, real stars dominate the top of the list, and directly counting them avoids any amplification regardless of the total candidate list size. Handles up to ~6 200 total stars before undercounting begins.

Changed

  • App display name: set CFBundleDisplayName = "Claude FITS Viewer" in Info.plist. Finder, Dock, and menu bar now show "Claude FITS Viewer" instead of the internal product name.

2026-03-07 — Fix star counts wildly inflated (~27×) for BITPIX=16 images

Fixed

  • Phase 2 extrapolation poisoned by noise false positives (MetricsCalculator.measureFWHMOnly): for many BITPIX=16 images the GPU detectLocalMaxima kernel finds 50 000+ local maxima (hitting the candidate cap), because at the background + 5σ threshold many background noise pixels qualify. NMS with minSep=3 barely reduces this sparse set. measureFWHMOnly then accepts ~50% of those noise peaks as "stars" (isolated noise spikes produce a flat, wide profile that happens to fall in the FWHM [0.5, 20] range), and Phase 2 extrapolates that rate across ~47 000 candidates → ~21 000 reported stars regardless of the true count.

    Fix: added a cheap 4-neighbour cross-section pre-filter at the top of measureFWHMOnly. All four immediate neighbours (±1px in X and Y, background-subtracted) must exceed 15% of the peak. A real star (Moffat β=4, FWHM ≥ 1.7 px) has ≥ 16% flux in each immediate neighbour; an isolated noise spike has neighbours near sky level (~0 after background subtraction). The check rejects ≈ 99.7% of isolated noise peaks with 4 array lookups, before the 20-point Moffat loop runs.

2026-03-07 — Fix star counts inflated 3× for integer FITS images

Fixed

  • NMS skipped for integer images (MetricsCalculator): the GPU detection path bypassed non-maximum suppression for BITPIX > 0 images on the assumption that integer ties prevent multiple local maxima per star. In practice, read noise causes adjacent integer-valued PSF pixels to differ by one ADU, so each star still produces 2–3 competing local maxima. The result was a 3× star-count inflation for BITPIX=8/16/32 images. Removed the bitpix-gated NMS logic — NMS now runs unconditionally on both GPU and CPU paths, consistent with the CPU-only computeImpl path which already applied NMS for all BITPIX values.

2026-03-07 — Fix FWHM/Ecc/SNR missing from session chart

Fixed

  • Saturation filter excluded all stars (MetricsCalculator): the saturation threshold was computed from a 5000-pixel stratified sample max. In sparse star fields most of the sample hits sky background, so the sample max is close to sky level — making threshold = sampleMax × 0.90 lower than virtually all star peaks. The condition candidate.peak < saturationThreshold was therefore false for every candidate, leaving fwhmValues, eccValues, and snrValues empty. Removed the saturation filter entirely; genuinely clipped/saturated stars are already excluded by the fwhm <= 20 guard on the Moffat fit result (flat-topped profiles produce degenerate fits or halo FWHM well above 20 px). Also reverted the estimateBackground return type to the simpler (median, sigma) tuple.

2026-03-06 — Two-phase loading, NMS bypass, and render-trigger reduction

Changed

  • Two-phase loading pipeline (ImageStore.processParallel): loading is now split per image into Phase A (I/O + histogram + GPU stretch → isProcessing = false, image visible) and Phase B (metrics, runs after the image appears, reusing the already-loaded Metal buffer without a second disk read). Previously metrics were computed before createImage, so any regression in metrics speed directly delayed image display.
  • NMS bypass for integer FITS images (MetricsCalculator.compute): non-maximum suppression is now skipped when BITPIX > 0. In integer images, adjacent pixels often share the same ADU value, so the strict-greater-than local-maximum test naturally produces at most one candidate per stellar PSF — NMS was ~20 ms of unnecessary overhead per image. Float images (BITPIX < 0) still require NMS because IEEE 754 uniqueness creates multiple local maxima per star.
  • Single MainActor hop per image: the task group return type changed from Void to (ImageEntry, FrameMetrics?). Phase B results are now applied directly on the main actor in the collection loop instead of via a second await MainActor.run from a background thread. This halves the number of SwiftUI render triggers during a batch load, reducing thumbnail and chart re-render churn.
  • Phase 1 reduced to 200 candidates: shape-statistic measurement (FWHM/eccentricity/SNR) uses the top 200 candidates (was 300), matching the original pre-session behaviour.
  • Moffat fit: pow(x, 0.25) → two squareRoot() calls in both fitMoffat1D and measureFWHMOnly: avoids the transcendental powf function (~5× faster for this specific exponent).
  • Uniform-sampled star count (MetricsCalculator.measureCandidates): Phase 2 star counting replaced the per-candidate parallel withTaskGroup (which was measuring all remaining candidates with the full measureShape including the expensive 21×21 eccentricity loop) with a sequential uniform sample of ~600 candidates measured by measureFWHMOnly. Extrapolation gives accurate star counts in < 2 ms instead of 4–6 seconds.
  • measureFWHMOnly: new lightweight helper — 1D Moffat β=4 fit along X only at integer pixel coordinates; no bilinear centroid, no Y-axis fit, no eccentricity loop. ~10× cheaper per call than the full measureShape.

2026-03-06 — BITPIX=-32 metric fixes + parallel star measurement

Fixed

  • BITPIX=-32 images showed no metrics ("No stars detected"): Background estimation used a hardcoded sigma floor of 1.0 which overshot all pixel values in float FITS images (range 0.0–1.0). Replaced with a data-relative floor of dataRange × 0.0001.
  • SNR too low for float images (value ~2): Aperture photometry SNR (iNet / sqrt(iNet + nAp·σ²)) is not scale-invariant and collapses for small-valued float data. Replaced with peak SNR (peakVal / sigma), which gives consistent results across BITPIX=16/32/-32/-64.
  • Star count 10× too high for BITPIX=-32: IEEE 754 floats are almost always unique (no integer ties), so every background fluctuation created a unique local maximum. Fixed with non-maximum suppression (NMS, minSep=3px, grid-based O(n), brightest-first) followed by PSF-verified counting (only candidates where Moffat FWHM ∈ [0.5, 20px] are counted).
  • Computation took 4–5 seconds after removing star cap: Measuring all 15 000+ candidates sequentially was O(15k × Moffat fit). Fixed with a two-phase approach: Phase 1 — sequential top-300 for shape statistics (FWHM/ecc/SNR medians, up to 200 unsaturated); Phase 2 — parallel FWHM-only check across CPU cores via withTaskGroup chunked by ProcessInfo.activeProcessorCount. Uses PixelBuffer: @unchecked Sendable to safely share the read-only pixel pointer across task-group children.
  • Inspector always showed "Computing…": The text was unconditional below the metrics toggles. Now shows "Computing…" only while entry.isProcessing, otherwise "No stars detected".
  • Session chart showed "Computing metrics…" indefinitely: The placeholder was a static fallback for any empty chartPoints. Now checks store.isBatchProcessing first, falling back to "No (metric) data for this session".

2026-03-06 — Performance refactor: cached sort/filter + vectorized BITPIX=-64

Changed

  • sortedEntries cached: previously a fully-computed property that sorted all entries on every SwiftUI render pass — O(n log n) on every frame for metric-based sort orders. Replaced with a cachedSortedEntries stored property updated only when sort settings change (didSet) or at batch/recompute boundaries. sortedEntries is now a trivial forwarding property.
  • activeFilterGroups cached: previously recomputed a Set + filter on every sidebar render — O(n) per frame. Now a stored private(set) property updated via updateActiveFilterGroups() at batch boundaries.
  • thumbnailSortOrder / thumbnailSortAscending: added didSet triggers calling updateCachedSort() so the cache stays current when the user changes sort settings interactively.
  • setRating triggers resort: changing a star rating now calls updateCachedSort() when the current sort order is .rating.
  • openFiles seeds the cache: updateActiveFilterGroups() + updateCachedSort() called synchronously after new entries are appended, so the sidebar renders with loading spinners immediately rather than waiting for batch completion.
  • recomputeMetrics refreshes sort after Pass 1: the synchronous cache-restore pass now calls updateCachedSort() before the background batch starts, ensuring the sort reflects the restored metrics instantly.
  • BITPIX=-64 vectorized byte swap (FITSReader.swift, both readIntoBuffer and read paths): replaced a scalar for i in 0..<pixelCount { temp[i] = temp[i].byteSwapped } loop with a two-step vImage SIMD technique — (1) vImagePermuteChannels_ARGB8888([3,2,1,0]) reverses bytes within each 4-byte group across the whole buffer; (2) vImageHorizontalReflect_ARGB8888 on a width=2, height=pixelCount view swaps the two 4-byte halves within each 8-byte double. Together these reproduce a full 64-bit byte reversal entirely in Accelerate SIMD.

2026-03-06 — Dock-icon drag & drop + documentation

Commit 18b05c2

Added

  • Dock-icon drag & drop: dropping FITS files or folders onto the app icon now opens them, whether the app is already running or being cold-launched by the drop. URLs received before the main view is ready are buffered and delivered as soon as the window appears.
  • Info.plist: custom Info.plist added to the project, declaring .fits, .fit, and .fts as supported document types so Finder recognises the app and allows dock-icon drops even when the app is closed.
  • Score.md: full technical explanation of how quality metrics and the composite 0–100 score are calculated — background estimation, star detection (GPU and CPU paths), FWHM via 1D Moffat β=4 fit, eccentricity via 2D intensity-weighted moments, SNR via aperture photometry, weighted score formula, and badge colour logic.

2026-03-06 — Performance overhaul + UI fixes

Commit e4b02d0

Fixed

  • Beachball / UI sluggishness during metric computation: the star-measurement stage previously created up to 200 async tasks per image. With 4–8 images loading concurrently this produced 800–1 600 micro-tasks simultaneously, flooding the cooperative thread pool and starving the main thread. Replaced with a sequential loop — per-star work (~10 µs) is far smaller than task-creation overhead.
  • Simple → Geek mode recompute was extremely slow: recomputeMetrics was using the CPU path (FITSReader.read + CPU star detection). Switched to the GPU path (readIntoBuffer + Metal kernel), matching the speed of the initial Geek-mode load.
  • groupStatistics causing mass re-renders: converting from a computed property (read all entries' metrics on every call, registering every visible thumbnail cell as a dependency on all entries) to a stored property updated only at batch boundaries. Eliminated O(n²) render churn during metric updates.
  • Elapsed time missing after Simple/Geek switch: a guard that hid the elapsed-time display in Simple mode was incorrectly also hiding it in Geek mode. Removed.
  • Session chart covering the main image: capped chart height and gave the main image layout priority.

Changed

  • Background task priority: batch loading and metric recomputation tasks now run at .utility priority, leaving more CPU headroom for UI responsiveness.
  • Concurrent image loading: reduced from 4–8 simultaneous tasks to 3, avoiding disk thrashing on large FITS files.

Added

  • No wrap-around at list boundaries: pressing next on the last image (or previous on the first) now beeps and stays, instead of wrapping to the other end.
  • Single-key reject/undo toggle: a new option in Settings makes the reject key act as a toggle — pressing it on a rejected frame undoes the rejection, and on a non-rejected frame rejects it. The separate undo key is hidden when this mode is active.
  • Space bar as a key binding: the space bar can now be assigned to any action in the keyboard settings. It is recorded, stored, displayed as "Space", and matched correctly by the key-press handler.

2026-03-06 — Simple/Geek mode, filter groups, quality badges, auto-reject, drag & drop

Commit 89bf054

Added

  • Simple / Geek mode switch: icon-only toolbar button (⌘⇧M, also in the View menu). Simple mode shows a stripped-down UI — flat thumbnail list, no metrics computation, no badges, no ratings, no chart, no inspector, reject/undo only. Switching back to Geek mode restores cached metrics instantly without re-reading files. Mode is remembered between launches.
  • Filter-group sidebar: thumbnails are grouped by filter (Ha, OIII, SII, Hβ, broadband, etc.) with a filter strip for quick narrowing. FilterGroup enum normalises raw FILTER header values to canonical groups.
  • Quality badges: two-tier system — colour encodes the worst detected problem (red = trailing/focus failure, amber = low stars, green = top third of group, grey = neutral). A small SF Symbol icon overlays the badge to identify the problem type. Thresholds are group-relative so narrowband frames are not unfairly penalised.
  • Auto-reject sheet: one-click culling with relative (× group median) or absolute thresholds for FWHM, eccentricity, star count, and score. Live preview count before committing. Per-metric enable toggles.
  • Window drag & drop: FITS files and folders can be dragged onto the app window. A blue highlight overlay appears during the drag.
  • Session chart: scrollable dot chart showing the selected metric across all frames in the session, with tap-to-select and drag-to-batch-reject.
  • Parallelised star measurement: withTaskGroup across star candidates for maximum CPU utilisation during metrics computation (later superseded by the sequential fix above for better overall throughput).
  • GroupStats: per-filter-group medians for FWHM, star count, and top-third score floor, used by badges and auto-reject.
  • BadgeProblem enum: trailing, focus failure, low stars — drives badge colour and icon independently of the numeric score.

2026-03-04 — Initial Commit

Commit 8729ff1

Added

  • Full FITS file viewer for macOS 15.7+, written in Swift 6.2 / SwiftUI.
  • FITSReader: parses FITS headers (80-character cards, 2 880-byte blocks) and pixel data. Supports BITPIX 8, 16, 32, −32, −64. Two read paths: readIntoBuffer (Metal shared buffer, zero-copy GPU path) and read (CPU [Float] array).
  • ImageStretcher: GPU path via a Metal compute shader (FITSStretch.metal) with percentile clipping (0.1 %/99.9 %) and power-law gamma stretch. CPU fallback using Accelerate (vImage) with vectorised LUT interpolation, byte-swap, vertical flip, and optional downscaling. Images downscaled to 1 024 px max for display; thumbnails capped at 120 px.
  • MetricsCalculator: GPU star detection (full-frame Metal kernel), CPU fallback (4 096² crop with vectorised row-max pre-filter). Per-star FWHM (1D Moffat β=4), eccentricity (2D intensity-weighted moments), SNR (aperture photometry). Composite quality score 0–100.
  • ImageStore: triple-buffered concurrent pipeline (FITS I/O → GPU stretch → CGImage), semaphore-capped concurrency. Security-scoped bookmarks for sandbox file access. Rejection moves files to a REJECTED/ subdirectory; undo restores them. Star ratings 1–5, persisted to a .culling.json sidecar file per folder.
  • ContentView: HSplitView sidebar + main viewer. Keyboard navigation (↑/↓, Home/End), configurable key bindings, Cmd+O / Cmd+Shift+O to open folder or files.
  • InspectorView: per-frame metrics, histogram, FITS header table.
  • SettingsView: configurable key bindings (recorded via KeyRecorderView), image size limits, per-metric toggles, appearance mode.
  • ExportPanel: export kept frames as a plain-text file list or CSV with metrics, filtered by minimum star rating.
  • SessionChartView (initial version): metric strip chart.
  • App icon (M33 galaxy).

Contributors

Concurrent
Assets 3
Loading