An image processing apparatus is disclosed in which image information read by image information read-out means is reduced by reducing encoding means and simultaneously compressed by compressing means to be displayed as an image, or encoded image information is decoded by decoding means to be stored in a memory and simultaneously is reduced by reducing means to be displayed as an image, thus the apparatus can implement rapid processings, and reducing circuit for image information which reduces image information in the main scanning direction and makes storage means store reduced image information sequentially and simultaneously further reduces this reduced image information in the subscanning direction.

A pipelined image processor is disclosed which contains a diagnostic apparatus which, under normal processing conditions, is coupled to and is in communication with resequencer, image processor, and transposer/compressor assemblies contained within the pipelined image processor. The diagnostic apparatus of this invention causes a diagnostic test pattern to be sent to the re-sequencer and image processor entities of the pipelined image processor and monitors the response thereof. This response is then used to detect faults which have occurred in these entities.

A signal processing device for generating an output signal corresponding to a multi-dimensional input signal such as a two-dimensional image and a method of processing such a signal. The device includes an array of processing elements which are congruent and shaped so that they can be arranged on a processing element so that adjacent pairs of elements considered as a unit are geometrically similar to each processing element. Output signals of individual processing units are linearly ordered in such a manner as to maintain adjacency of signals from adjacent processing elements in the array. The ordering facilitates one-dimensional Haar transform processing of the signals in such as a manner as to localize signal energy.

A control system for pipelined image processing emulates a multi-tasking environment using a single tasking application. A number of predefined image processing tasks are provided in a library. When a host application needs a processed image from an image source, the host application creates a pipeline of initialized instantiations of one or more of the tasks from the library. When the host application invokes the pipeline, the first data request for the heater of the image travels upstream in a first channel. The processed image header is returned down the first channel. Then a data request for scanlines of image data is sent upstream in a second data channel. The data request ripples upstreamwardly to the upstream-most instantiation of one of the tasks from the task library. The upstream-most instantiation of a task obtains a scan line from an image data source and returns it downstreamwardly to the host application in the second channel. Each instantiation of a task from the task library further operates on the image data. Once all of the scanlines have been processed, the memory allocations and data structures created during initialization are released to free up that memory.

A system and method for pipelined data processing emulates multi-tasking pipelined data processing in a single tasking environment. A host application running in the single tasking environment creates a pipeline of linked data processing tasks to process data from a data source and to provide the processed data to the host application. As each data processing task of the pipeline is created, the task calls an external procedure to obtain header data indicative of the data to be received by the task. Each task alters the obtained header data to reflect the data processing operation to be performed by the task, then the task creates an external procedure callable by other tasks or the host application. The external procedure provides the processed header data from within a task to the calling task or host application. After all tasks of the pipeline are created the host application invokes the pipeline to obtain processed data from the pipeline.