Parallel image processing using a Pentium-based shared-memory multiprocessor system

This paper describes two different parallel computing approaches for image processing problems on a Pentium based multiprocessor-system. These multiprocessor computers are often used as network servers. We demonstrate the utilization of one of these machines, equipped with four Intel Pentium processors, for a parallel image processing task. A parallel computation of motion vector-fields based on correlation techniques is discussed to show the possible acceleration. The computational results show that a high efficiency can be reached, even a linear speedup is possible under certain conditions. Besides the mentioned correlation technique there are various image processing problems that can easily be evaluated in parallel. Although massively parallel systems and special purpose systems are much faster, off-line image processing can be accelerated by using these broadly available low-cost machines.