Model-integrated program synthesis environment for parallel/real-time image processing
Michael S. Moore, Janos Sztipanovitz, Gábor Karsai, James Nichols · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1997
In this paper, it is shown that, through the use of model- integrated program synthesis (MIPS), parallel real-time implementations of image processing data flows can be synthesized from high level graphical specifications. The complex details in inherent to parallel and real-time software development become transparent to the programmer, enabling the cost-effective exploitation of parallel hardware for building more flexible and powerful real-time imaging systems. The model integrated real-time image processing system (MIRTIS) is presented as an example. MIRTIS employs the multigraph architecture (MGA), a framework and set of tools for building MIPS systems, to generate parallel real-time image processing software which runs under the control of a parallel run-time kernel on a network of Texas Instruments TMS320C40 DSPs (C40s). The MIRTIS models contain graphical declarations of the image processing computations to be performed, the available hardware resources, and the timing constraints of the application. The MIRTIS model interpreter performs the parallelization, scaling, and mapping of the computations to the resources automatically or determines that the timing constraints cannot be met with the available resources. MIRTIS is a clear example of how parallel real-time image processing systems can be built which are (1) cost-effectively programmable, (2) flexible, (3) scalable, and (4) built from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components.