Nobuyuki Sasaki

A programmable video signal multi-processor for HDTV signals

A programmable video signal processor (HD-Picot system) has been developed. It has 64 homogeneous processors and processes signals at video rate including conventional TV and high definition television (HDTV) signals by adopting a reconfigurable structure and sophisticated control. The performance is about 14.3 giga operations per second, which can be increased by adding processors. Various functions are carried out by program, including spatio-temporal filtering, edge detection, motion-vector detection, geometric transformation, color processing, pattern matching, texture mapping, and image synthesis. It can be applied to a wide range of fields such as broadcasting, communication, machine vision, etc.<<ETX>>

Real-Time Video Signal Processing System For Dynamic Images

A real-time video signal processing system (Picot-system) has been developed which processes multiple color time-varying images at video-rate and carries out various image processing functions such as edge detection, and geometrical transformation. The system is a multi-processor system including several hundred processors, and is divided into cascaded clusters, each of which has 16 processors. Each processor has an image memory to store all data required for its own processing, thus eliminating memory-access conflict. These processors and cluster inputs/outputs are connected by a crossbar network, which carries out all combinations of connections, and processors operate in both parallel and pipeline fashion. Micro-program controlled system has a control mechanism and arithmetic functions suitable for image signal processing. Performance of the system improves in proportion to the number of processors. The processors and network are virtually all LSIs, which use CMOS gate-array technology. The Picot-system can be applied to various fields such as medical imaging, robot vision, video CODEC, broadcast video production, and so on.

Measuring and display system of a marathon runner by real-time digital image processing

The measuring and display system for a marathon TV program employing a real-time image processor and a fast graphic processor has been developed. The system consists of three parts: the step frequency subsystem; the automatic TV camera tracking subsystem; and the computer graphic display subsystem. Actually it is the first trial which could track the motion of a runners face and obtain the step frequency and display the runners motion at a real-time rate in the sports program. In the step frequency subsystem, the step frequency for a marathon runner is detected by applying two different methods: measuring the area corresponding the figure of a runner and tracking the motion vector of a runners face. By applying the result of detecting the motion vector, the automatic TV camera tracking subsystem is implemented. In the computer graphic display subsystem, the data for the position of each joint in the runners leg are prepared beforehand. By applying the step frequency to those prepared data, the runners motion is drawn out as an 3-D animation.

A Study of Multiple Use for Fast Processors.

This paper considers an algorithm that can realize the multiple use for plural fast processors. For this purpose, the fast switching network which connects processors and variable delays is needed. A DPS (Digital Signal Processor) chip model is assumed that includes plural multipliers, arithmetic logic units, variable delays, registers, and a cross point. The algorithm is studied for many examples and confirmed by software simulation. The digital master control system for a broadcast station is studied as an example and the DSP chip model can be very successfully used for the TV master control system Each multiplier, alu, or variable delay is very efficiently assigned and the equipment could be made much smaller.

Universal video signal processor. Picot system.

番組制作形態の多様化, 放送メディアの多元化に対処するために, 映像信号を高度に, 効率よく処理する「汎用映像処理システム」を提案する.このシステムは, 規格化された同種のハードウェアを用いて, ソフトウェアを変えることにより広汎な映像信号処理のニーズに対応しようとするものである.この概念を具体化するために, 約200台のプロセッサを持つ並列コンピュータ, Picotシステムを開発した.このシステムは, 14.3MHz, または13.5MHzでサンプリングされた映像信号を実時間で処理する.処理内容は, 階調処理, 時間・空間フィルタリング, 幾何学変換, 複数画像処理など放送局でよく使用されているものであり, これを複数同時に実行する.Picotシステムで多数使用するプロセッサや相互接続するネットワークは, 新規開発したLSIを使用している.