Sequential Image Warping Circuitry for Low-Memory Video Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing image warping technologies face inefficiencies in computation cost, latency, and memory usage, particularly in applications like projectors, AR, and VR headsets, due to concurrent decimation and interpolation operations.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of separate horizontal and vertical warper circuitry with partial frame memory and decimation-interpolation separation, using partial frame memory and dynamically sized column buffers, reduces latency and memory overhead.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If concurrent decimation and interpolation operations are used in image warping, then processing speed is improved, but computational cost and memory usage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image warping process into two separate sequential operations: first horizontal warping (decimation and interpolation in horizontal direction), then vertical warping (decimation and interpolation in vertical direction). This segmentation reduces the computational complexity of concurrent operations while maintaining processing efficiency through dedicated horizontal and vertical warper circuitry.
2Manufacturing precision
If full frame memory is used for image warping, then image quality is preserved, but memory overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and processes only the necessary portions of the image frame at each stage. The horizontal warper processes rows independently and outputs a horizontally warped image, then the vertical warper processes columns independently. This selective processing approach maintains image quality while reducing memory overhead by avoiding the need to store and process the entire frame simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the processing dimensionality by separating horizontal and vertical warping into sequential passes rather than simultaneous 2D processing. This dimensional separation allows the system to maintain high image quality through proper sampling and interpolation in each dimension while significantly reducing the memory buffer requirements from full frame size to line buffer size.
3Loss of time
If separate horizontal and vertical warping stages are implemented, then latency is reduced, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary horizontal warping before vertical warping, with each stage completing its processing and outputting to the next stage. The horizontal warper performs decimation and interpolation in the horizontal direction first, producing a horizontally warped intermediate image, then the vertical warper performs the same operations in the vertical direction. This preliminary action approach reduces latency by enabling pipelined processing and avoiding the need to hold the entire frame in memory for simultaneous processing.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, apparatus, systems, and articles of manufacture are disclosed to warp images for video processing. An example device includes horizontal warper circuitry configured to access an input image, decimate a first set of pixels in the input image by row, and interpolate a second set of pixels in the input image by row to produce a horizontally warped image. The example device further includes vertical warper circuitry configured to access the horizontally warped image, decimate a first set of pixels in the horizontally warped image by column, and interpolate a second set of pixels in the horizontally warped image by column to produce an output image.