5.4 Project

The project within this course will have you designing an HW/SW codesign that encodes sensor data to a QOI encoded image. The resulting design would look something like shown below.

Example image

Goals

This project is to be achieved in two steps:

  1. a software-only version, and
  2. a HW/SW codesign.

This first version (SW-only) will set the reference. Additionally, this will help you in understanding the encoding scheme. The result of the first version will be a working implementation. This will allow you to run the numbers (latency, resource usage, throughput, …).

When the first version is done, optimisations are chosen and you’ll set of to make the HW/SW codesign. You can use which ever technique you think is best for obtaining your optimisations.

Here are a number of resources that might come in handy:

Deadlines AY2024-2025

  • March 25th: work on software
  • April 1st: no course
  • April 22nd: deadline for software version + start HW/SW codesign
  • April 30th: work on HW/SW codesign
  • May 6th: work on HW/SW codesign
  • May 13th: Presentations

Template

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>

#define C_WIDTH 8
#define C_HEIGHT 8


void initialise(uint8_t r[C_WIDTH][C_HEIGHT], uint8_t g[C_WIDTH][C_HEIGHT], uint8_t b[C_WIDTH][C_HEIGHT], uint8_t a[C_WIDTH][C_HEIGHT]) {
    uint8_t w, h;

    for(h=0;h<C_HEIGHT/2;h++) {
        for(w=0;w<C_WIDTH/2;w++) {
            r[h][w] = 255; g[h][w] = 0; b[h][w] = 0; a[h][w] = 255;
        }
        for(w=C_WIDTH/2;w<C_WIDTH;w++) {
            r[h][w] = 0; g[h][w] = 255; b[h][w] = 0; a[h][w] = 255;
        }
    }
    for(h=C_HEIGHT/2;h<C_HEIGHT;h++) {
        for(w=0;w<C_WIDTH/2;w++) {
            r[h][w] = 0; g[h][w] = 0; b[h][w] = 255; a[h][w] = 255;
        }
        for(w=C_WIDTH/2;w<C_WIDTH;w++) {
            r[h][w] = 127; g[h][w] = 127; b[h][w] = 127; a[h][w] = 255;
        }
    }
}

int main(void) {

    uint8_t r[C_HEIGHT][C_WIDTH];
    uint8_t g[C_HEIGHT][C_WIDTH];
    uint8_t b[C_HEIGHT][C_WIDTH];
    uint8_t a[C_HEIGHT][C_WIDTH];

    uint8_t r_prev = 0;
    uint8_t g_prev = 0;
    uint8_t b_prev = 0;
    uint8_t a_prev = 255;

    uint8_t dr, dg, db;


    int8_t rle = -1;
    uint32_t running_array[64];
    uint8_t rv;
    uint8_t index;
    uint32_t value;

    /* Sanity check */
    if((C_WIDTH % 2) || (C_HEIGHT % 2)) {
        printf("ERROR: W or H not even");
        return 1;
    }

    /* Initialisation */
    initialise(r, g, b, a);
    for(uint8_t i=0;i<64;i++) {
        running_array[i] = 0;
    }

    /* Loop over pixels */
    for(uint8_t h=0;h<C_HEIGHT;h++) {
        for(uint8_t w=0;w<C_WIDTH;w++) {

            /* Do something useful here */
            
        }
    }

    return 0;
}