ABSTRACT
In the year 1977, preliminary thoughts on a second generation picture processor system, PICAP II, were brought forward. During 1978 and 1979 these thoughts crystallized into a completely new architecture. PICAP II is considerably more of a modular and open-ended system than PICAP I. This chapter describes a language (PPL) for high level programming of picture processing routines that has been implemented for interactive use in the PICAP I system. It also describes the instruction set and architecture of the PICAP I-processor. The chapter evaluates the performance of the processor where run-time statistics of the instruction use of different pattern recognition projects will be shown. It explores the two main categories, local and multiple instructions. The chapter discusses the local instructions of PICAP I where only one picture operand is involved and then explains multiple-operand instructions. It illustrates pixel parallelism which utilizes the processing hardware to 100% and lends itself to neighborhoods of arbitrary shape and size.
