2 Dataflow Computing

Short compute times are crucial for timely diagnostics in biomedical applications, but lead to a high demand in computing for new and improved imaging techniques. In this book reconfigurable computing with FPGAs is discussed as an alternative to multi-core processing and graphics card accelerators. Instead of adjusting the application to the hardware, FPGAs allow the hardware to also be adjusted to the problem. Acceleration of Biomedical Image Processing with Dataflow on FPGAs covers the transformation of image processing algorithms towards a system of deep pipelines that can be executed with very high parallelism. The transformation process is discussed from initial design decisions to working implementations. Two example applications from stochastic localization microscopy and electron tomography illustrate the approach further. Topics discussed in the book include: • Reconfigurable hardware • Dataflow computing • Image processing • Application acceleration