A comparative evaluation of DSPs, microprocessors and the transputer for image processing

DPSs (digital signal processors), conventional microprocessors, and transputers are compared on the basis of their ability to perform image processing tasks, with a view to assessing their potential for implementation in real time systems. The study covers a selection of the more important instructions in use in image processing algorithms as well as a selection of the algorithms themselves as a simple benchmark, and includes a survey of multiprocessor systems implemented with some of these processors. It is concluded that DSPs are better suited to embedded systems, but the transputer may offer the advantage in a research environment of general usefulness for supercomputing power. Transputer systems are also more flexible in the sense of re-programmability, and a single system could be used for all processing levels, numeric and symbolic, in a computer vision system