Picture operation unit for performing operations on intensity data of neighboring picture elements

摘要

A neighboring picture operation unit for carrying out data operations on a plurality of picture elements having multilevel intensity information having a neighboring picture element register for storing the data corresponding to the intensity information for each picture element, a bit selector for selecting all the bits corresponding to a specific bit position of the intensity information for each of the picture elements, and a bit operator for performing the operations on the data corresponding to a bit position in accordance with the results of operations performed on data corresponding to other bit positions. The bit operator has a programmable logic array (PLA) for performing AND operations on groups of data corresponding to a specific bit position and patterns of bits generated by a ROM in response to previous comparisons of picture data corresponding to a specific bit position. The operations performed may for example include the determination of the highest intensity picture element from a two dimensional grouping of picture elements.