A linked list run-length-based single-pass connected component analysis for real-time embedded hardware

• Main Authors: Tang, Jia Wei, Shaikh-Husin, Nasir, Sheikh, Usman Ullah, Marsono, Muhammad Nadzir
• Format: Article
• Published: Springer Verlag 2016
• Subjects: TK7885-7895 Computer engineer. Computer hardware
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/72825/; https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84963700595&doi=10.1007%2fs11554-016-0590-2&partnerID=40&md5=695f804cf835a5c6bc3d1fb23f3bd0ea
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Conventional connected component analysis (CCA) algorithms render a slow performance in real-time embedded applications due to multiple passes to resolve label equivalences. As this fundamental task becomes crucial for stream processing, single-pass algorithms were introduced to enable a stream-oriented hardware design. However, most single-pass CCA algorithms in the literature inhibit maximum streaming throughput as additional time such as horizontal blanking period is required to resolve label equivalence. This paper proposes a novel single-pass CCA algorithm, using a combination of linked list and run-length-based techniques to label and resolve equivalences as well as extracting the object features in a single raster scan. The proposed algorithm involves a label recycling scheme which attains low memory requirement design. Experimental results show the implementation of the proposed CCA achieves one cycle per pixel throughput and surpasses the most memory-efficient state-of-the-art work up to 25 % reduction in memory usage for (Formula presented.) pixels image.