Application level Performance Optimization: A Computer Vision Case Study on STHORM

International audienceComputer vision applications constitute one of the key drivers for embedded many-core architectures. In order to exploit the full potential of such systems, a balance between computation and communication is critical, but many computer vision algorithms present a highly data-dependent behavior that complexifies this task. To enable application performance optimization, the development environment must provide the developer with tools for fast and precise application-level performance analysis. We describe the process to port and optimize a face detection application onto the STHORM many-core accelerator using the STHORM OpenCL SDK. We identify the main factors that limit performance and discern the contributions arising from: the application itself, the OpenCL programming model, and the STHORM OpenCL SDK. Finally, we show how these issues can be addressed in the future to enable developers to further improve application performance