Algorithmic Techniques for Computer Vision on a Fine-Grained Parallel Machine

The authors describe several fundamentally useful primitive operations and routines and illustrate their usefulness in a wide range of familiar version processes. These operations are described in terms of a vector machine model of parallel computation. They use a parallel vector model because vector models can be mapped onto a wide range of architectures. They also describe implementing these primitives on a particular fine-grained machine, the connection machine. It is found that these primitives are applicable in a variety of vision tasks. Grid permutations are useful in many early vision algorithms, such as Gaussian convolution, edge detection, motion, and stereo computation. Scan primitives facilitate simple, efficient solutions of many problems in middle- and high-level vision. Pointer jumping, using permutation operations, permits construction of extended image structures in logarithmic time. Methods such as outer products, which rely on a variety of primitives, play an important role of many high-level algorithms. >