Method and apparatus for performing neighborhood operations on a

Abstract

The present invention is a method and apparatus for performing neighborhood processing operations on an n dimensional processing plane. In a simple, two dimensional, example, an M by N processing plane is successively scanned by rows. The output information from each row is presented on column lines. The analog data resulting from a fixed number of successive scans are temporarily held in a multi-stage analog buffer. A computing array is configured to perform the neighborhood operations or other limited co-operand operations on the shifted data. The computing array examines information from a slice made up of selected numbers of successive rows of the entire array, performs the operations on that portion, and provides a series of output signals representative of the result. The analog buffer is pipelined; information from a new row represents only a single row of new data and the contents of the latch stage containing the oldest information is replaced with this new analog data, causing the information from the transducers of the oldest row to be lost. The operation is then performed on the new slice. This sequence is repeated until all representative slices of the total array have had the neighborhood operations performed on them.