Hardware and software implications of representing scenes as data

Cheops: a reconfigurable data-flow system for video processing

“…In addition to the dimensions of data compression and robustness to noise, the Information and Entertainment Section of the MIT Media Laboratory has been exploring what we feel will ultimately be the most dramatic impact of digital video: the ability to decouple the form in which images originate from the form in which they are ultimately viewed. [1] This research has proceeded in two directions. First, we h a v e extended \traditional" video coding techniques to allow decoding at resolutions and frame rates other than that of the originating camera (\open architecture" television) and to support sending various subsets of the bitstream over dierent c hannels (\scalability").…”

“…Cheops is similarly a data-ow computer, in that algorithms are described as graphs involving operations by specialized stream processors and specifying the data dependencies among the operations. 1 A v on Neumann general-purpose processor controlling everything, though, greatly enhances the exibility and programmability of the system. Cheops diers from IDATEN in several areas, particularly in that resources are scheduled dynamically so that the same software will run on dierently-equipped Cheops systems and so that multiple application programs can run concurrently.…”