METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ACCESSING HORIZONTAL SEQUENCES AND RECTANGULAR SUBARRAYS FROM AN ARRAY IN A MODIFIED WORD ORGANIZED RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY SYSTEM

摘要

A conventional word organized random access memory is modified for image processing operations so that the pq image points of any 1 × pq or p × q subarray of an rp × sq or smaller image array stored in the memory can be extracted or updated in a single memory cycle. The invention contemplates pq memory modules labeled from 0 to pq- 1 for storing the image points, each module being able to store rs points in distinguishable cells, only one cell of which is randomly accessible in a single instant of time. The invention further contemplates accessing circuitry for causing each image point I(i,j) of an image array to be routed to or from a memory module M(i,j) according to the relation M(i,j) =(iq+j)//pq, where (iq+j)//pq is the remainder resulting from the integer division of (iq+j) by pq. The accessing circuitry additionally causes image point I(i,j) to be stored into or retrieved from a cell location A(i,j) of module M(i,j) according to the relation A(i,j)=(i/p)s+(j/q), where i/p and j/q represent integer quotients.