Frame Buffer Research Articles

Mixed-resolution HEVC based multiview video codec for low bitrate transmission

There has been increasing demand for multiview video transmission over band limited channel over past years and various techniques have been proposed to fulfil this need. In this paper, a High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) based spatial resolution scaling type of mixed resolution coding model, MRHEVC-MVC, for frame interleaved multiview videos is presented. However, enabling the HEVC to encode video with different frame resolutions is a challenge due to the coding tree partitioning used by the codec. This has been overcome by super-imposing the low resolution replica of each full resolution frame on their respective decoded picture buffer and setting the remaining space of the frame buffer to zero. The codec’s reference frames structure is designed to efficiently encode frame interleaved multiview videos using a HEVC based mixed resolution codec. The proposed MRHEVC-MVC codec has been tested against the standard multiview extension of high efficiency video codec (MV-HEVC) for “Balloon”, “Newspaper1”, “Undo_Dancer”, “Kendo” and ““Poznan_Street” standard multiview video sequences. Results show that the proposed codec gives significantly higher coding performance to that of the MV-HEVC codec at low bitrate both subjectively and objectively.

Barcoding Technologies for the Tasks of the Facial Biometrics: State of the Art and New Solutions

Subject of Research. Application of barcoding technologies in the tasks of facial biometrics is posed and discussed. We analyze the achievements and estimate the shortcomings of existing solutions and examples of barcode creation according to the face images and the features extracted by them. Method. The ways of the problem implementation are determined and new solutions are presented based on linear (Code 128) and two-dimensional (QR) barcodes, as well as their color variants. The composition and volume of data are considered being used in the facial biometry and related applications: medicine, criminalistics and forensic-medical examination. Among these data there are face images, as well as sets of anthropometric points and additional information to them, information about the phenotype of face images (FI) and gender, and, finally, documentary information. Main Results. We have shown the results of these data “recording and transferring” within the framework of various barcode layouts, as well as the results of their reading and ways of hiding from reading. The proposed color barcodes are defined as “BIO Code 128” and “BIO QR-code”. While graphical display and computer memory record, they may be viewed as, colored raster images that carry information about the face in each layer. At this, documentary information may be read directly from such color images by standard barcode scanners, and the rest of the information (face image itself, its anthropometric, accompanying parameters) is read and restored after their decomposition into layers R, green and blue. Practical Relevance. The layout variants of the “BIO Code 128” and “BIO QR-code” barcodes and the programs for their generation (written in the MATLAB package environment) may be used in the further studies of the barcoding problem in the tasks of the facial biometrics and its applications.

51‐5: Late-News Paper: Fast Motion Picture Response Color Filter LCOS for Wearable Applications

The display for augmented reality (AR) applications has to update image promptly in order to cope with the user's head movement or any environment change. It makes image blur become noticeable if the motion picture response time of the AR display is longer than 1.5ms. We propose an image blur free Color Filter LCOS (CFLCOS) which equipped with 1.9ms liquid crystal response time; analog frame buffer and 480fps refreshing rate. It is found that the MPRT of such device can be as fast as <1.5ms.

Efficient and Anti-Aliased Trimming for Rendering Large NURBS Models.

In Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) are a common model representation for export, simulation and visualization. In this paper, we present a direct rendering method for trimmed NURBS models based on their parametric description. Our approach builds on a novel trimming method and a three-pass pipeline which both allow for a sub-pixel precise visualization. The rendering pipeline bypasses tessellation limitations of current hardware using a feedback mechanism. In contrast to existing work, our trimming method scales well with a large number of trim curves and estimates the trimmed surface's footprint in screen-space which allows for an anti-aliasing with minimal performance overhead. Fragments with trimmed edges are routed into a designated off-screen buffer for subsequent blending with background faces. The evaluation of the presented algorithms shows that our rendering system can handle CAD models with ten thousands of trimmed NURBS surfaces. The suggested two-level data structure used for trimming outperforms state-of-the-art methods while being more precise and memory efficient. Our curve coverage estimation used for anti-aliasing provides an efficient trade-off between quality and performance compared to multisampling or screen-space anti-aliasing approaches.

High PRF ultrafast sliding compound doppler imaging: fully qualitative and quantitative analysis of blood flow

Ultrafast compound Doppler imaging based on plane-wave excitation (UCDI) can be used to evaluate cardiovascular diseases using high frame rates. In particular, it provides a fully quantifiable flow analysis over a large region of interest with high spatio-temporal resolution. However, the pulse-repetition frequency (PRF) in the UCDI method is limited for high-velocity flow imaging since it has a tradeoff between the number of plane-wave angles (N) and acquisition time. In this paper, we present high PRF ultrafast sliding compound Doppler imaging method (HUSDI) to improve quantitative flow analysis. With the HUSDI method, full scanline images (i.e. each tilted plane wave data) in a Doppler frame buffer are consecutively summed using a sliding window to create high-quality ensemble data so that there is no reduction in frame rate and flow sensitivity. In addition, by updating a new compounding set with a certain time difference (i.e. sliding window step size or L), the HUSDI method allows various Doppler PRFs with the same acquisition data to enable a fully qualitative, retrospective flow assessment. To evaluate the performance of the proposed HUSDI method, simulation, in vitro and in vivo studies were conducted under diverse flow circumstances. In the simulation and in vitro studies, the HUSDI method showed improved hemodynamic representations without reducing either temporal resolution or sensitivity compared to the UCDI method. For the quantitative analysis, the root mean squared velocity error (RMSVE) was measured using 9 angles (−12° to 12°) with L of 1–9, and the results were found to be comparable to those of the UCDI method (L = N = 9), i.e. ⩽0.24 cm s−1, for all L values. For the in vivo study, the flow data acquired from a full cardiac cycle of the femoral vessels of a healthy volunteer were analyzed using a PW spectrogram, and arterial and venous flows were successfully assessed with high Doppler PRF (e.g. 5 kHz at L = 4). These results indicate that the proposed HUSDI method can improve flow visualization and quantification with a higher frame rate, PRF and flow sensitivity in cardiovascular imaging.

Complexity reduction method for ultrasound imaging enhancement in tetrolet transform domain

Medical ultrasound images are often very obscure due to the capture devices used. As medical ultrasound images can provide information regarding potential pathological changes and abnormalities, images must be preserved and enhanced to help doctors to monitor the course of diseases. This work proposes using the energy concentration characteristics of tetrolet transform (TT) to preserve texture information and integrate the technique of adaptive histogram equalization (AHE) in order to automatically adjust the ultrasound image contrast, thereby resolving the aforementioned problems. However, the implementation of the TT in software structure brings issues such as computational complexity and large frame buffer use. In view of these problems, this work proposes a low-complexity matching pattern (LMP) method to reduce the space complexity. The LMP is combined with a look-up table approach that solves the issue of the excessive calculations generated in AHE during linear interpolation. The experimental results indicate that the modified algorithm is applicable in ultrasound imaging systems as it is able to improve calculation times.

Barcoding technologies for facial biometrics: current status and new solutions

Subject of Research.Application of barcoding technologies in the tasks of facial biometrics is posed and discussed. We analyze the achievements and estimate the shortcomings of existing solutions and examples of barcode creation according to the face images and the features extracted by them. Method. The ways of the problem implementation are determined and new solutions are presented based on linear (Code 128) and two-dimensional (QR) bar codes, as well as their color variants. The composition and volume of data are considered being used in the facial biometry and related applications: medicine, criminalistics and forensic-medical examination. Among these data there are face images, as well as sets of anthropometric points and additional information to them, information about the phenotype of FI and gender, and, finally, documentary information. Main Results. We have shownthe results of these data "recording and transferring" within the framework of various barcode layouts, as well as the results of their reading and ways of hiding from reading. The proposed color barcodes are defined as "BIO Code 128" and "BIO QR-code". While graphical display and computer memory record, they can be viewed as colored raster images that carry information about the face in each layer. At this, documentary information can be read directly from such color images by standard barcode scanners, and the rest of the information (face image itself, its anthropometric, accompanying parameters) is read and restored after their decomposition into layers R, green and blue.Practical Relevance. The layout variants of the "BIO Code 128" and "BIO QR-code" barcodes and the programs for their generation (written in the MATLAB package environment) can be used in the further studies of the barcoding problem in the tasks of the facial biometrics and its applications.

Multiplier-Less Stream Processor for 2D Filtering in Visual Search Applications

A new 2D convolution-based filter is presented, which is specifically designed to improve visual search applications. It exploits a new radix-3 partitioning method of integer numbers, derived from the weight partition theory, which allows substituting multipliers with simplified floating point (FP) adders, working on 32-b FP filter coefficients. The memory organization allows elaborating the incoming data in raster scan order, as those directly provided by an acquisition source, without frame buffers and additional aligning circuitry. Compared with the existent literature, built around conventional arithmetic circuitry, the proposed design achieves state-of-the-art performances in the reduction of the mapped physical resources and elaboration velocity, achieving a critical path delay of about 4.5 ns both with a Xilinx Virtex-7 field-programmable gate array and CMOS 90-nm std_cells.

Real-time Frame Buffer Implementation based on External Memory using FPGA

In this paper, design of a real-time video frame buffer with an external memory interface is proposed. In addition, simulation and implementation processes of the design is described. The mentioned system is able to buffer video signals up to 1920×1080 full-HD resolution at 60 Hz frame rate. The memory interface is designed based on an external SDRAM memory and supports burst read/write operations. Input video resolution, video buffer size on memory and burst size of the memory interface are user defined and can be configured.

Fabrication and Study of Amorphous Silicon Based MOS Capacitor

Thin film MOS Capacitors are becoming popular in large area flexible electronics for various applications like display systems, memory devices and filters. MOS Capacitors mainly consists of layers of metal, insulator and semiconductor on a substrate. In this work MOS Capacitors are fabricated in clean room environment using Aluminum as metal layer, silicon nitride as insulator layer and amorphous silicon as semiconductor layers on the glass substrate. The silicon nitride and amorphous silicon were deposited using PECVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) techniques and Aluminum is coated using Thermal Evaporation Techniques. The size of the MOS capacitor fabricated was 3mmx3mm; shadow masking is used for obtaining contact for measurements. The Fabricated MOS capacitor is tested using semiconductor analyzer machine for capacitance measurements. The fabricated capacitor was able to give accumulation region, depletion region and inversion region at lower frequencies.

A Real-Time FHD Learning-Based Super-Resolution System Without a Frame Buffer

This brief presents a real-time learning-based super-resolution (SR) system without a frame buffer. The system running on an Altera Stratix IV field programmable gate array can achieve output resolution of 1920 $\times $ 1080 (FHD) at 60 fps. The proposed architecture performs an anchored neighborhood regression algorithm that generates a high-resolution image from a low-resolution image input using only numbers of line buffers. This real-time system without a frame buffer makes it possible to integrate SR operation into image sensors or display drivers carrying out computational photography and display.

SI-traceable calibration-free analysis for the active concentration of G2-EPSPS protein using surface plasmon resonance

Active proteins play important roles in the function regulation of human bodies and attract much interest for use in pharmaceuticals and clinical diagnostics. However, the lack of primary methods to analyze active proteins means there is currently no metrology standard for active protein measurement. In recent years, calibration-free concentration analysis (CFCA), which is based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology, has been proposed to determine the active concentration of proteins that have specific binding activity with a binding partner without any higher order standards. The CFCA experiment observes the changes of binding rates at totally different two flow rates and uses the known diffusion coefficient of an analyte to calculate the active concentration of proteins, theoretically required, the binding process have to be under diffusion-limited conditions. Measuring the active concentration of G2-EPSPS protein by CFCA was proposed in this study. This method involves optimization of the regeneration buffer and preparation of chip surfaces for appropriate reaction conditions by immobilizing ligands (G2-EPSPS antibodies) on sensor chips (CM5) via amine coupling. The active concentration of G2-EPSPS was then determined by injection of G2-EPSPS protein samples and running buffer over immobilized and reference chip surfaces at two different flow rates (5 and 100μLmin−1). The active concentration of G2-EPSPS was obtained after analyzing these sensorgrams with the 1:1 model. Using the determined active concentration of G2-EPSPS, the association, dissociation, and equilibrium constants of G2-EPSPS and its antibody were determined to be 2.18 ± 0.03 × 106M−1s−1, 5.79 ± 0.06 ×10−3s−1, and 2.65 ± 0.06 × 10−9M, respectively. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated. The within-day precisions were from 3.26% to 4.59%, and the between-day precision was 8.36%. The recovery rate of the method was from 97.46% to 104.34% in the concentration range of 1.5–8nM. The appropriate concentration range of G2-EPSPS in the proposed method was determined to be 1.5–8nM. The active G2-EPSPS protein concentration determined by our method was only 17.82% of that obtained by isotope dilution mass spectrometry, showing the active protein was only a small part of the total G2-EPSPS protein. The measurement principle of the proposed method can be clearly described by equations and the measurement result can be expressed in SI units. Therefore, the proposed method shows promise to become a primary method for active protein concentration measurement, which can benefit the development of certified reference materials for active proteins.

Stoichiometry and Dispersity of DNA Nanostructures Using Photobleaching Pair-Correlation Analysis

A wide variety of approaches have become available for the fabrication of nanomaterials with increasing degrees of complexity, precision, and speed while minimizing cost. Their quantitative characterization, however, remains a challenge. Analytical methods to better inspect and validate the structure and composition of large nanoscale objects are required to optimize their applications in diverse technologies. Here, we describe single-molecule fluorescence-based strategies relying on photobleaching and multiple-color co-localization features toward the characterization of supramolecular structures. By optimizing imaging conditions, including surface passivation, excitation power, frame capture rate, fluorophore choice, buffer media, and antifading agents, we have built a robust method by which to dissect the structure of synthetic nanoscale systems. We showcase the use of our methods by retrieving key structural parameters of four DNA nanotube systems differing in their preparation strategy. Our method rapidly and accurately assesses the outcome of synthetic work building nano- and mesoscale architectures, providing a key tool for product studies in nanomaterial synthesis.

GPU accelerated non-illuminated graphical electromagnetic computing method with high accuracy

In this paper, a novel non-illuminated Graphical Electromagnetic Computing Method (NI-GRECO) based on GPU acceleration has been proposed. It has the advantages of high accuracy and efficiency compared to the traditional GRECO method, and does not suffer from the limitation in the illumination model anymore. In this NI-GRECO we also proposed a pixel subdivision technique, which can improve the display accuracy of the target model and then increase computing accuracy. In case of the data output, the method of data extraction by using the Frame Buffer Object (FBO) can also improve computing accuracy. In this way, the data output is no longer subject to color restriction. The extraction accuracy of the normal vector increased from 1/256 to 1/1000000. Additionally, the novel method has a significant speedup, which is up to 36 times than the original GRECO method for a sphere RCS simulation thanks to the parallel GPU processing.

Design of a Convolutional Two-Dimensional Filter in FPGA for Image Processing Applications

Exploiting the Bachet weight decomposition theorem, a new two-dimensional filter is designed. The filter can be adapted to different multimedia applications, but in this work it is specifically targeted to image processing applications. The method allows emulating standard 32 bit floating point multipliers using a chain of fixed point adders and a logic unit to manage the exponent, in order to obtain IEEE-754 compliant results. The proposed design allows more compact implementation of a floating point filtering architecture when a fixed set of coefficients and a fixed range of input values are used. The elaboration of the data proceeds in raster-scan order and is capable of directly processing the data coming from the acquisition source thanks to a careful organization of the memories, avoiding the implementation of frame buffers or any aligning circuitry. The proposed architecture shows state-of-the-art performances in terms of critical path delay, obtaining a critical path delay of 4.7 ns when implemented on a Xilinx Virtex 7 FPGA board.

Wide dynamic range of surface‐plasmon‐resonance‐based assay for hepatitis B surface antigen antibody optimal detection in comparison with ELISA

Limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantification, and the dynamic range of detection of hepatitis B surface antigen antibody (anti-HBs) using a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) chip-based approach with Pichia pastoris-derived recombinant hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) as recognition element were established through the scouting for optimal conditions for the improvement of immobilization efficiency and in the use of optimal regeneration buffer. Recombinant HBsAg was immobilized onto the sensor surface of a CM5 chip at a concentration of 150 mg/L in sodium acetate buffer at pH 4 with added 0.6% Triton X-100. A regeneration solution of 20 mM HCl was optimally found to effectively unbind analytes from the ligand, thus allowing for multiple screening cycles. A dynamic range of detection of ∼0.00098-0.25 mg/L was obtained, and a sevenfold higher LOD, as well as a twofold increase in coefficient of variance of the replicated results, was shown as compared with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Evaluation of the assay for specificity showed no cross-reactivity with other antibodies tested. The ability of SPR chip-based assay and ELISA to detect anti-HBs in human serum was comparable, indicating that the SPR chip-based assay with its multiple screening capacity has greater advantage over ELISA.

Low-power coprocessor for Haar-like feature extraction with pixel-based pipelined architecture

Intelligent analysis of image and video data requires image-feature extraction as an important processing capability for machine-vision realization. A coprocessor with pixel-based pipeline (CFEPP) architecture is developed for real-time Haar-like cell-based feature extraction. Synchronization with the image sensor’s pixel frequency and immediate usage of each input pixel for the feature-construction process avoids the dependence on memory-intensive conventional strategies like integral-image construction or frame buffers. One 180 nm CMOS prototype can extract the 1680-dimensional Haar-like feature vectors, applied in the speeded up robust features (SURF) scheme, using an on-chip memory of only 96 kb (kilobit). Additionally, a low power dissipation of only 43.45 mW at 1.8 V supply voltage is achieved during VGA video procession at 120 MHz frequency with more than 325 fps. The Haar-like feature-extraction coprocessor is further evaluated by the practical application of vehicle recognition, achieving the expected high accuracy which is comparable to previous work.

Reducing the User-perceived Latency of Browsers with NVRAM

Non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) provides many opportunities to improve the performance of computing devices. In this paper, we present an approach that reduces the user-perceived latency of browsers by using NVRAM. To this end, we first analyze the browser launch process, and then employ several techniques that improve the performance of each step by using NVRAM. Specially, we focus on minimizing the launch time of browser by 1) prefetching the block sequence required for browser launch, 2) caching the web resources in the fast NVRAM, and 3) reusing the displayed bitmap data in the frame buffer. Through implementation, we show that our scheme significantly reduces the launch time of browsers.

Bufferbloat Avoidance with Frame-Dropping Threshold Notification in Ring Aggregation Networks

In recent years, the reduced cost and increased capacity of memory have resulted in a growing number of buffers in switches and routers. Consequently, today's networks suffer from bufferbloat, a term that refers to excess frame buffering resulting in high latency, high jitter, and low throughput. Although ring aggregation is an efficient topology for forwarding traffic from multiple, widely deployed user nodes to a core network, a fairness scheme is needed to achieve throughput fairness and avoid bufferbloat, because frames are forwarded along ring nodes. N Rate N+1 Color Marking (NRN+1CM) was proposed to achieve per-flow fairness in ring aggregation networks. The key idea of NRN+1CM is to assign a color that indicates the dropping priority of a frame according to the flow-input rate. When congestion occurs, frames are selectively discarded based on their color and the frame-dropping threshold. Through the notification process for the frame-dropping threshold, frames are discarded at upstream nodes in advance, avoiding the accumulation of a queuing delay. The performance of NRN+1CM was analyzed theoretically and evaluated with computer simulations. However, its ability to avoid bufferbloat has not yet been proven mathematically. This paper uses an M(n)/M/1/K queue model to demonstrate how bufferbloat is avoided with NRN+1CM's frame-dropping threshold-notification process. The M(n)/M/1/K queue is an M/M/1/K queuing system with balking. The state probabilities and average queue size of each ring node were calculated with the model, proving that the average queue size is suppressed in several frames, but not in the most congested queue. Computer simulation results confirm the validity of the queue model. Consequently, it was logically deducted from the proposed M(n)/M/1/K model that bufferbloat is successfully avoided with NRN+1CM independent of the network conditions including the number of nodes, buffer sizes, and the number and types of flows.

On Design of Three Dimensional Multi-access Memory System for Video Overlay System

Background/Objectives: In order to achieve the high-performance computing in the area of manipulating video data in parallel way,a 3D multi-access memory system had been applied as a frame buffer to implement a video overlay system. Methods/Statistical Analysis: According to investigated functionalities of video overlay systemsclassified to SIMD architecture, 3D multi-access memory system has been considered as a suitable frame buffer for the systems. In 3D multiaccess memory system, a memory module assignment function and an address assignment function satisfying the access patterns for the video overlaying function had been researched. And then four function modules for memory modules selection, address calculation, data routing and address routing had been generated from two main functions. Processing elements and control unit associated with the memory system had been described by Verilog-HDL and then verified in Model Simsimulator. Findings: The 3D multi-access memory system for video overlay system which is proposed in this paper supports conflict-free access to volume elements with an interval at an arbitrary position. Although the memory system which can be adequate for SIMD architecture is based on a prime skewing scheme, two drawbacks have been inherited in terms of an implementation complexity and a waste of physical memory cells. So, a solution for the former caused by lots of expensive operations is suggested by dividing the address calculation into the base addresses and the address differences and then the calculated base addresses stored in internal storages. Utilizing unused memory cells as a local buffer for external devices (e.g., processing elements in an SIMD machine) is proposed for the latter. The two drawbacks are pretty solved by these solutions and implementation issues concerned with the solutions are concretely addressed in this paper. Improvements/Applications: 3D multi-access memory system had been redesigned for the video overlay system which supports conflict-free access to three channels of a pixel within any two kinds of access formats with an interval at an arbitrary position. 3D multi-access memory system can be regarded as more generalized one for SIMD architecture than previously developed.