SOFTWARE DESIGNS OF IMAGE PROCESSING TASKS WITH INCREMENTAL REFINEMENT OF COMPUTATION

We propose software designs that perform incremental computation with monotonic distortion reduction for two-dimensional convolution and frame-by-frame block-matching tasks. In order to reduce the run time of the proposed designs, we combine bitplane-based computation with a packing technique proposed recently. In the case of block matching, we also utilize previously-computed motion vectors to perform localized search when incrementing the precision of the input video frames. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by execution time measurements on the xo-laptop (“100 $ laptop”) and on a mainstream laptop; our software is also made available online. In comparison to the conventional (non-incremental) software realization, the proposed approach leads to scalable computation per input frame while producing identical (or comparable) precision for the output results of each operating point. In addition, the execution of the proposed designs can be arbitrarily terminated for each frame with the output being available at the already-computed precision. Index Terms — complexity-scalable image processing, incremental refinement of computation, programmable processor