Concurrent computation of attribute filters on shared memory parallel machines

IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2008 Oct;30(10):1800-13. doi: 10.1109/TPAMI.2007.70836.

Abstract

Morphological attribute filters have not previously been parallelized, mainly because they are both global and non-separable. We propose a parallel algorithm that achieves efficient parallelism for a large class of attribute filters, including attribute openings, closings, thinnings and thickenings, based on Salembier's Max-Trees and Min-trees. The image or volume is first partitioned in multiple slices. We then compute the Max-trees of each slice using any sequential Max-Tree algorithm. Subsequently, the Max-trees of the slices can be merged to obtain the Max-tree of the image. A C-implementation yielded good speed-ups on both a 16-processor MIPS 14000 parallel machine, and a dual-core Opteron-based machine. It is shown that the speed-up of the parallel algorithm is a direct measure of the gain with respect to the sequential algorithm used. Furthermore, the concurrent algorithm shows a speed gain of up to 72 percent on a single-core processor, due to reduced cache thrashing.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Artificial Intelligence*
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Image Enhancement / instrumentation
  • Image Enhancement / methods
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / instrumentation
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / instrumentation
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Information Storage and Retrieval / methods*
  • Pattern Recognition, Automated / methods*