Image and video processing on FPGAs: An Exploration Framework for Real-Time Applications

This work presents a design framework for real-time image and video processing enabling exploration and evaluation of different processing techniques. The goal of our educational approach is to develop a flexible and easily customizable environment for prototyping different processing techniques on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), targeting specific applications. In this paper we give an overview of different requirements and techniques of video processing featuring FPGAs. Three real-time video processing algorithms were combined to show the advantages and characteristics of our approach. Within the framework, the modules running in parallel can be easily swapped at run-time according to the application specific needs.