Parallel Processing For Computer Vision

It has been estimated that processor speeds on the order of 1 to 100 billion operations per second will be required to solve some of the current problems in computer vision. This paper overviews the use of parallel processing techniques for various vision tasks using a parallel processing computer architecture known as PASM (partitionable SIMD/MIMD machine). PASM is a large-scale multimicroprocessor system being designed for image processing and pattern recognition. It can be dynamically reconfigured to operate as one or more independent SIMD (single instruction stream-multiple data stream) and/or MIMD (multiple instruction stream-multiple data stream) machines. This paper begins with a discussion of the computational capabilities required for com-puter vision. It is then shown how parallel processing, and in particular PASM, can be used to meet these needs.