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Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

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Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#51

Post by trishume »

sandGorgon wrote: post #8
blt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Halide and OpenCV are not comparable. Halide is mainly about decoupling the description of a low-level image processing operation from implementation details regarding tiling, storage of intermediate results, etc. OpenCV is a library implementing high level algorithms like multi-view 3D reconstruction that Halide does not even attempt to address.

My mistake, I phrased my question incorrectly. Why not opencv with a halide backend. The tensorflow whitepaper compares the TF ir to the halide ir. In fact, the work in tensorflow core is around XLA https://www.tensorflow.org/performance/xla/ (which brings compatibility across various architecture) It seems that this is more an attempt at locking the tensors to target custom metal, so that it can't be copied and made…

Halide is much more flexible. OpenCV is a fixed high level toolbox, combining things requires lots of intermediate buffers. Halide allows compiling arbitrary kernels in a fused way with extremely good performance. Sure you could implement OpenCV functions using Halide, but better to expose the lower level more flexible API. Source: I’ve rewritten parts of an OpenCV app in Halide for performance.

Also your argument that it’s not about perf makes no sense to me. Sure other phones have HDR, I bet its way slower and more energy intensive than the Pixel 2. Except maybe the iPhone, which may also have custom silicon. If they had custom HDR tech in software they wanted to keep they could just keep the source closed, or patent it.

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#52

Post by lorrysomm »

GuB-42 wrote: post #46

So what is that IPU exactly? Lots of buzzwords but few actual details about the architecture. Is it like a integer GPU? The massive amount of ALUs suggests something like that. But later, I see "Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we’re already preparing the next set of applications.". So, is it FPGA-like?

It's a CPU designed to collect private user data and sell ads (and occasionally work with the NSA in Prysm-like programs).

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#54

Post by arca_vorago »

lorrysomm wrote: post #52
GuB-42 wrote: post #46

So what is that IPU exactly? Lots of buzzwords but few actual details about the architecture. Is it like a integer GPU? The massive amount of ALUs suggests something like that. But later, I see "Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we’re already preparing the next set of applications.". So, is it FPGA-like?

It's a CPU designed to collect private user data and sell ads (and occasionally work with the NSA in Prysm-like programs).

You got down voted but the way Google has been acting I wouldn't be surprised.

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#55

Post by matwood »

windexh8er wrote: post #44
jacobolus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their results are quite bad compared to a passably competent Photoshop user willing to spend 2 minutes per picture. But if you need the computer to do all the color adjustment for you, so you can post your snapshot on facebook or print it at the local drug store with no manual intervention, this might be a good enough result.

I think you are missing the point with improvements of this nature. Take for example: you have kids. You're at an event with said kids. While I still own a mirror-less micro 4/3rds, I often time don't have it with me. It's easy to snap hundreds of photos in random life events with a good smart phone camera. I personally have almost 2TB of family photo and video and I've got a long way to go. Can you imagine me spendi…

> This thread seems to be filled with amateur professionals thinking that their iPhone or Pixel will magically do something optically it can't (yet?).

This is key. I own some decent camera gear and I'm amazed at what is coming out of all of the top end phones. Of course I can critique and find faults, but the pictures that non-photographers can take with their phones in a matter of seconds are down right amazing.

I actually wonder if the gear heads feel their domain threatened? I'm waiting for the day when I don't have to lug around my camera and multiple pounds of lenses in order to get all the shots I want :)

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#56

Post by nicpottier »

mtgx wrote: post #13
mholt wrote: post #3

Cool, but am I the only one who thinks the photos on the right (toward the bottom) are a little overexposed / bland / washed-out?

No, I noticed it right away and I'm no photography expert. I suppose it's easy to control that in software, though, preferably before they actually enable the feature in Android 8.1. I also don't know if Google actually consults with real photography experts when creating these machine learning techniques. Apple made a big deal out of doing that at the last event to create "beautiful photos". It's not enough to just…

I feel the same way in that their portrait mode just doesn't look right compared to what you would get from a real shallow depth of field and a fast lens.

But I think the (depressing) truth of it is that I notice it because I've had fast lenses and spent a lot of time taking photos, so I know what natural looking bokeh looks like. And bokeh is also just an artifact of a lens and aperture combo, so who is to say that extreme blur with a sharp line as they are doing isn't just going to be the new standard?

I suspect the next generation will come to prefer this look (if it continues) and find the "natural" effect with real glass as weird.

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#57

Post by simonh »

It seems odd to me that Samsung isn't doing things like this. After all they have both the chip design talent in house, they design their own Eynos chips, and even have the fabs in house as well. They're not as well regarded for software, but they do at least have some in house dev capability. A Samsung Galaxy with that sort of differentiation would, like this phone, make even a die hard iPhone user like me take serious notice.

Or is Samsung actually right not to go down that path and the economics of Android handsets just don't support the significant extra spend and commensurate price bumps that sort of investment would require? The Pixels look like great devices, but without dramatically upping their distribution and marketing game is this really a vanity project for Google? I hope not, I'm crossing my fingers that with the talent they acquired from HTC, Google is really intent on making a splash in the market with the Pixel and not just in the tech press.

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#58

Post by sp332 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #46

So what is that IPU exactly? Lots of buzzwords but few actual details about the architecture. Is it like a integer GPU? The massive amount of ALUs suggests something like that. But later, I see "Notably, because Pixel Visual Core is programmable, we’re already preparing the next set of applications.". So, is it FPGA-like?

It's an Image Processing Unit. Architecturally I'd expect it to look like a GPU, maybe with something like the new matrix-multiply unit from their TPU. https://www.slideshare.net/AntoniosKatsarakis/tensor-process...

Edit: wrong name

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#59

Post by ggus »

bitL wrote: post #53

I wish my Nikon pro camera had a similar chip inside. Now we have two worlds - awesome pro cameras with incapable post-processing chips (I mean beyond RAW and initial processing) and horrible mobile cameras with outstanding post-processing chips.

Also the double lens, one for wide angle, one for tele, snapping at the same time and combining the images into one.

It will be a looooong time until we see that on a pro camera with interchangeable lenses, if ever.

Re: Pixel Visual Core: Google’s first custom-designed co-processor

#60

Post by ggus »

matwood wrote: post #55
windexh8er wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are missing the point with improvements of this nature. Take for example: you have kids. You're at an event with said kids. While I still own a mirror-less micro 4/3rds, I often time don't have it with me. It's easy to snap hundreds of photos in random life events with a good smart phone camera. I personally have almost 2TB of family photo and video and I've got a long way to go. Can you imagine me spendi…

> This thread seems to be filled with amateur professionals thinking that their iPhone or Pixel will magically do something optically it can't (yet?). This is key. I own some decent camera gear and I'm amazed at what is coming out of all of the top end phones. Of course I can critique and find faults, but the pictures that non-photographers can take with their phones in a matter of seconds are down right amazing. I a…

..or for the day that we have all those magic baked into our "decent camera gear"!
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