The high processing load of realtime processing still far exceeds the already high processing capabilities of modern microprocessors or digital signal processors. Therefore, realtime image processing often requires specialized processing units which perform low level image processing operations at video clock rates. Some modules are presented which extract contour points in grayscale images, perform thinning operations and gap closures and distribute these image data to a transputer cluster through up to eight link connections for further processing. Through a close cooperation between algorithm developers and hardware designers new results of algorithm development can be implemented in specialized processing modules in a very early stage. For the implementation often also ASICs and FPGAs (e.g. LCA) are used.
