Silicon Software Visual Applets

Graphical oriented tool for easy FPGA programming

Visual Applets is a graphical programming and development environment for the use of FPGA processors in imaging and machine vision. The strength of FPGAs is their ability to process large volumes of data at high speeds through parallelisation.

Reasons to use Visual Applets

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Opens up completely new possibilities

The tool enables users to program the processors without any expert knowledge of VHDL. It makes hardware-based imaging attractive not only for hardware programmers, but for software engineers and algorithm engineers too.

Maps programming solutions as graphical flow charts

Extensive libraries of operators are provided to help formulate imaging algorithms. The implementation of the operators in hardware and software allows bit-precision simulation of the visual results at each point of the data flow model, prior to synthesis. Additional information on format problems, bandwidth congestion or lack of processor resources help to debug the hardware design. Automatic correction of timing, data synchronisation and image border effects are performed by Visual Applets, simplifying the design process.

Integrated synthesis tools from FPGA manufacturer

Following the successful completion of a design, FPGA manufacturers produce a hardware applet. In parallel, an SDK example is generated, which can be integrated into its own application and run immediately.

The code lists all parameters defined in the design as dynamic operators, which can then be changed by the software, in parallel at runtime.

Bridging the gap between standard and custom architecture

Visual applets is aimed not only at hardware developers but software programmers too as no previous knowledge of circuitry, synchronisation, timings or FPGA programming is required. Modules can be programmed with respect to function, behaviour or data formats and the complete hardware design process takes on average 10-15 minutes for simple imaging applications.

To ease use, Visual Applets applets are immediately accessible in the SDK and microDisplay, giving the user a visual interface for control of the intermediate steps of the application.

Specifications

Interface: graphical interface for quick and easy programming of FPGAs
Data sets: extensive image processing libraries with various filter operators and imaging modules
Access: Visual Applets applets are immediately usable in the SDK and microDisplay
Miscellaneous: no knowledge of circuitry, synchronization, timings or FPGA programming is required