Real-Time Image Processing with a MIMD Computer

Abstract

Image processing applications require both computing and communication power. The aim of the GFLOPS project was to study all aspects concerning the design of such computers. The projects' aim was to develop a parallel architectures well as its software environment to implement those applications efficiently. The proposed architecture supports up to 512 processor nodes, connected over a scalable and cost-effective network at a constant cost per node. The first prototype implementation, running since the beginning of 1995, has shown that a parallel system can be both scalable and programmable through the use of a virtually shared memory paradigm, physically implemented with atomic message passing. GFLOPS-2 is a single-user machine which is designed to be used as a low-cost parallel co-processor board in a desk-top work station. In this paper we discuss the design of the GFLOPS-2 machine and evaluate the effectiveness of the mechanisms incorporated. The analysis of the architecture behaviour has been conducted with image processing and general purpose algorithms, written in C and assembler languages, through execution driven simulations. A development environment, especially a C data-parallel language, has been built for this purpose.