Media processing applications on the Imagine stream processor

Media applications, such as image processing, signal processing, video, and graphics, require high computation rates and data bandwidths. The stream programming model is a natural and powerful way to describe these applications. Expressing media applications in this model allows hardware and software systems to take advantage of their concurrency and locality in order to meet their high computational demands. The Imagine stream programming system, a set of software tools and algorithms, is used to program media applications in the stream programming model. We achieve real-time performance on a variety of media processing applications with high computation rates (4-15 billion achieved operations per second) and high efficiency (84-95% occupancy on the arithmetic clusters).