Software tool for real-time video processing and image enhancement gets better

Oct 21, 2011 21:31 GMT  ·  By

AMD may be focused on hardware, but its software expertise and activities still extend beyond the realm of drivers, as the latest press release makes it more than clear.

Advanced Micro Devices and MotionDSP have collaborated on the latest version of the Ikena ISR software.

This tool allows one to perform image enhancement and real-time video processing of recordings and still images captured by ISR sensors (ISR stands for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).

In other words, Ikena ISR could reconstruct even HD video, giving sharpness to otherwise dark and shaky videos, like the ones brought in as evidence in criminal investigations.

Basically, AMD and MotionDSP has been optimized for OpenCL on AMD hardware, like workstations and servers based on AMD Opteron chips and FirePro professional graphics.

“The powerful combination of Ikena ISR software and AMD-based hardware allows ISR analysts to get better video and advanced analytics – instant notification when there’s ground movement in a real-time ISR video feed. That’s crucial for quickly assessing a developing situation,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, AMD Fusion Experience Program.

“By working with industry standards like OpenCL, MotionDSP can enable greater choice and interoperability in hardware, bringing real-time intelligence to a broad group of defense and public safety officials.”

By real-time video processing, one means that a camera can be plugged into a PC server with AMD FirePro graphics, after which the feed is rendered in better image quality right as it is created.

“Working with AMD, we have been able to extract a level of performance that we couldn’t attain with other vendors,” said Sean Varah, founder and chief executive officer, MotionDSP.

“Real-time processing is critical to ISR analysts who need better video to make decisions as events happen. With the latest AMD graphics technology, on a single GPU we’re able to do 1080p video in real-time, two streams of 720p, and up to five streams of standard-definition video – that’s more than 60 percent improvement over our results with competing graphics technology.”