Image processing is a very heavy computational task, and achieving reasonable throughput is unlikely on conventional architectures.
A good platform to deal with images is the Papia2, a processor array able to reconfigure itself as a pyramid; the Papia2 array allows a one-to-one mapping between processors and image pixels. A low level and a high level simulator have been developed for the machine. The low-level simulator can execute Papia2 instructions and is used to code and test basic routines. The high-level simulator is devoted to the realization of more complex algorithms using a high level language.
The programming environment embeds a source-level debugger to trace running programs and a visualization module to monitor machine status in the form of evolving images.
With the 'imget' metaphor, active images capable of modifying their contents, it is possible to offer a high level access to the Papia2 array. Application development can thus ignore hardware details and deal only with image transformations. More recently a new solution, with off-the shelf hardware, has been developed, pursuing the hierarchical implementation of attention mechanisms by multiresolution techniques.