Strategies for Performing Scaling Operations on Image Information

An apparatus for performing a scaling operation on image information using a filter, comprising:

• a dynamic kernel pre-calculation module configured to:
• compute, based on scaling to be performed, a number of filter kernels required to implement the filter;
• and
• pre-compute and store the number of filter kernels;
• a kernel storage module configured to store the pre-computed filter kernels;
• and
• a kernel application module configured to apply the pre-computed filter kernels to a subset of the image information, wherein the applying comprising repeatedly sequencing through the filter kernels if there are more pixel elements in the subset of image information than there are pre-computed filter kernels.

A method for performing at least one processing task in an image processing pipeline using a pixel shader of a graphical processing unit, comprising:

• assigning weighting information to at least one texture unit of the pixel shader;
• assigning delta-shifted versions of input image information to plural other texture units of the pixel shader;
• and
• performing an operation using the pixel shader based on the information from the texture units, to thereby provide an output result.