Parallel and distributed processing of visual content: traditional view and new directions

Summary form only given. In recent years, processing of visual content has emerged as a key technology in many areas. Applications include consumer electronics, medical imaging, videoconferencing, and scientific visualization. However, the creation, processing, and management of these data types require an enormous computational effort, often too high for single processor architectures. Therefore, this fact taken together with the inherent data parallelism makes image processing and video processing natural application areas for parallel and distributed computing. Based on experiences from organizing the workshop series "Parallel and Distributed Image Processing, Video Processing, and Multimedia PDIVM", the EuroPar Multimedia topic, and other editorial activities we identify past, current, and future trends in the research lines associated with processing of visual content on parallel and distributed systems.