These are the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) held in Cetraro, Italy during 6-17 June 1983. The title of the ASI was Computer Arehiteetures for SpatiaZZy vistributed Vata, and it brouqht together some 60 participants from Europe and America. Presented ~ere are 21 of the lectures that were delivered. The articles cover a wide spectrum of topics related to computer architecture s specially oriented toward the fast processing of spatial data, and represent an excellent review of the state-of-the-art of this topic. For more than 20 years now researchers in pattern recognition, image processing, meteorology, remote sensing, and computer engineering have been looking toward new forms of computer architectures to speed the processing of data from two- and three-dimensional processes. The work can be said to have commenced with the landmark article by Steve Unger in 1958, and it received a strong forward push with the development of the ILIAC III and IV computers at the University of Illinois during the 1960's. One clear obstacle faced by the computer designers in those days was the limitation of the state-of-the-art of hardware, when the only switching devices available to them were discrete transistors. As aresult parallel processing was generally considered to be imprae­ tieal, and relatively little progress was made.

Inhalt

1. Algorithm-Driven Architecture for Parallel Image Processing.- 2. Architectures of SIMD Cellular Logic Image Processing Arrays.- 3. Classification Schemes for Image Processing Architectures.- 4. Representations of Spatially Parallel Architectures.- 5. Computer Architecture for Interactive Display of Segmented Imagery.- 6. The PASM System and Parallel Image Processing.- 7. The Conversion via Software of a SIMD Processor into a MIMD Processor.- 8. VLSI Multiprocessor for Image Processing.- 9. One, Two, ..., Many Processors for Image Processing.- 10. Microcomputer and Software Architecture for Processing Sequences of Maps: Association of Successive Frames.- 11. Disparity Based Scene Analysis.- 12. Pyramid Architectures for Image Analysis.- 13. Using Quadtrees to Represent Spatial Data.- 14. Octrees: A Data Structure for Solid-Object Modeling.- 15. Efficient Storage of Quadtrees and Octrees.- 16. Image Processing with Hierarchical Cellular Logic.- 17. Considerations on Pyramidal Pipelines for Spatial Analysis of Geoscience Map Data.- 18. An Interpolation Method on Triangular Networks for Surface Model Architectures.- 19. Introduction to a Simple but Unconventional Multiprocessor System and Outline of an Application.- 20. Parallel Processing.- 21. Parallel Algorithms for Hypotheses Generation in Continuous Speech.