Stream Processor for Real-Time Inverse Tone Mapping of Full-HD Images

In this paper, an architecture design of a hardware accelerator capable to expand the dynamic range of low dynamic range images to the 32-bit high dynamic range counterpart is presented. The processor implements on-the-fly calculation of the edge-preserving bilateral filtering and luminance average, to elaborate a full-HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) image in 16.6 ms (60 frames/s) on field-programmable logic (FPL), by processing the incoming pixels in streaming order, without frame buffers. In this way, the design avoids the use of external DRAM and can be tightly coupled with acquiring devices, thus to enable the implementation of smart sensors. The processor complexity can be configured with different area/speed ratios to meet the requirements of different target platforms from FPLs to ASICs, obtaining, in both implementations, state-of-the-art performances.