An Architecture for High-Performance 2-D Image Display

Image processing operations can be divided into two classes, those pre-processing operations that are marketand application-spe­ cific, and those widely-used operations that are useful in any applica­ tion that requires the display of two-dimensional images. In the inter­ est of achieving real-time rates for the broader class of 2-D image display operations, Hewlett-Packard has developed a hardware accel­ erator called VISUALIZE-IVX. It is capable of scaling, rotating, mirroring, translating and filtering lk-by-lk output images at greater than 30 frames/sec while simultaneously enhancing image.brightness . and contrast. This paper describes the pipelined architecture u.sed to 'actiieve this performance oh a desktop computer .. The arChitecture makes use of a hybrid mapping scheme for geometric transforma­ tions. Also a unique memory device was designed that minimizes 10­ eaI image buffers while eliminating the need to resend pixels from main memory. A recently developed method of extending the filter­ ing capabilities, that may be incorporated into future products, is also presented.