ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a case study consisting of an embedded application performing online image processing. Both theoretical and practical concepts are introduced: after an overview of basic concepts in computer input/output, some important facts on operating systems (OS) and software complexity will be presented. The chapter presents general concepts in computer input/output (I/O). It discusses how I/O is managed by operating systems, in particular Linux. The chapter describes the implementation of the frame acquisition. It concentrates on the analysis of the acquired frames to retrieve the desired information; after presenting two widespread algorithms for image analysis. The chapter presents the main concepts about software complexity. It shows how the execution time for those algorithms can be reduced, sometimes drastically, using a few optimization and parallelization techniques. The chapter concentrates on image analysis, introducing some basic concepts and algorithms.
