|
Conference on Domain-Specific Languages, 1997
Programming Language Support for Digitized Images or, The Monsters in the Closet
Daniel E. Stevenson and Margaret M. Fleck
University of Iowa
Abstract
Computer vision (image understanding) algorithms are difficult to
write, debug, maintain, and share. This complicates collaboration,
teaching, and replication of research results. This paper shows how
user-level code can be simplified by providing better programming
language constructs, particularly a new abstract data type called a
"sheet." These primitives have been implemented as an extension to
Scheme.
Implementation of sheet operations is made challenging by the fact
that images are extremely large, e.g. sometimes over 5 megabytes each.
Therefore, operations that loop through images must be compiled from
(a specialized subset of) Scheme into C. This paper discusses how the
need for extreme efficiency affects the design of the user-level
language, the run-time support, and the compiler.
- View the full text of this paper in
HTML form and
PDF form.
- If you need the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it from Adobe's site.
- To become a USENIX Member, please see our Membership Information.
|
Need help? Use our Contacts page.
Technical Program