The Disputer : A Dual Paradigm Parallel Processor for Graphics and Vision.
I. P. Page · 2007
This paper reports the design and programming of a parallel processor which is a coupled arrangement of a 256-processor SIMD machine and a 42-processor MIMD machine. Many applications, particularly in the areas of computer graphics and vision, naturally exhibit extensive data-parallelism in some of the key algorithms and extensive control-parallelism in others. We have constructed a computing engine which encompasses both a data-parallel computing paradigm in a 16 x 16 SIMD array, and also a control-parallel paradigm in a MIMD network of transputers. The two parallel machines are closely coupled and the SIMD machine has a video output channel for the generation of real-time animations (with video input being added soon). The entire system is programmed in Occam 2 which will eventually be extended to include facilities specifically for certain array data types and operations handled in the SIMD machine. This system is now allowing us to investigate dual paradigm algorithms effectively a...