PowerVR imaging framework targets computational photography

It is aimed at advanced vision and computational photography features such as HDR (high dynamic range), panoramic stitching, gesture recognition and augmented reality, which all require large amounts of processing power.

The PowerVR imaging framework tightly integrates the GPU with other system components such as a camera sensor, ISP (Image Signal Processor), CPU and other SoC-specific hardware to create a programmable image processing pipeline that can be easily incorporated into an OEM’s camera application. With the power and performance efficiency of PowerVR GPUs, Imagination’s OEM partners can now deploy cutting-edge vision features into their camera applications, ahead of dedicated hardware implementation in future SoCs – all within the constrained power budget of smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices.

The set of software components includes extensions to the OpenCL and EGL APIs that enable efficient zero-copy sampling of YUV and RGB camera data, says the company. The extensions enable direct manipulation of YUV data formats, for example, which can be used to accelerate algorithms that operate only on luminance data. Another extension allows hardware to be configured to dynamically convert YUV data to RGB when sampled.

PowerVR imaging framework – Luxoft lane detection

There are also low-level functions for integrating such zero-copy extensions within the camera HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). Once integrated, says Imagination, these extensions could be used to help overcome limitations of camera lenses, the ISP (Image Signal Processor) hardware feature set, or the stock Android camera application.

In the video below (and pictured, top), the system is demoed using Miracast, the peer-to-peer wireless screencasting standard that runs on existing Wi-Fi Direct connections.

According to the company, the PowerVR video decoder takes care of the low power processing required for smooth H.264 playback on a smartphone’s display. And the PowerVR video encoder captures the composited output of the PowerVR video decoder, GPU and display engine in H.264 format and sends it using the Miracast standard to the receiver (the little black box) connected via HDMI to the PC monitor.

“With the imaging framework for PowerVR, we are making it easy for our customers and their OEMs to differentiate their camera applications using their existing SoCs, all without adding to the hardware cost,” said Peter McGuinness, director of multimedia technology marketing, Imagination.

“We are making our imaging platform available to lead partners under an early access program. I am excited to see the excellent progress of our software partners in building up the vision ecosystem around this foundational PowerVR computing technology.”

You can read the official announcement and also a detailed Imagination blog post.

Image: The new framework is used by Luxoft in a variety of automotive applications – this is a screenshot of their CES lane detection demo running on PowerVR Rogue GPUs.

httpv://youtu.be/qyb0XjM6PnI