Block matching between first data and second data

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of computer-readable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by at least one processor are arranged to cause the at least one processor to perform a block matching operation between first data and second data by:

• a) configuring a buffer in internal memory of the processor for storing summed area table, SAT, data;
• b) populating the buffer with initial SAT data based on a difference between at least an initial portion of the first data and second data;
• c) performing an iterative process, wherein each iteration of the iterative process comprises:
• c1) selecting a first portion in the first data and a corresponding second portion of the second data, wherein the selecting is performed using a sliding window approach, wherein a window used for selecting moves with a predefined window offset for each iteration;
• c2) determining a subset of the first portion and a subset of the second portion;
• c3) computing absolute differences, AD, data between the determined subset of the first portion and the determined subset of the second portion;
• c4) computing SAT data using the computed AD data and at least a portion of the SAT data stored in the buffer;
• c5) replacing a subset of the SAT data stored in the buffer with at least portions of the computed SAT data;
• c6) calculating difference data between the first portion and the second portion using the SAT data stored in the buffer, wherein the difference data comprises a difference result for each of a plurality of comparisons between the first data and the second data;
• and
• c7) storing the calculated difference data between the first portion and the second portion to memory;
• and
• d) using the stored difference data to determine matched blocks of data between the first data and second data.

A processing module configured to perform a block matching operation between first data and second data, the processing module configured to:

• obtain task data describing a block matching task to be executed between first data and second data;
• configure a buffer in internal memory of the processor for storing summed area table, SAT, data;
• populate the buffer with initial SAT data based on a difference between at least an initial portion of the first data and second data;
• perform an iterative process, wherein each iteration of the iterative process comprises:
• select a first portion of the first data and a corresponding second portion of the second data using a sliding window approach, wherein a window used for selecting moves with a predefined window offset for each iteration;
• determine a subset of the first portion of the first data and a subset of the second portion of the second data;
• compute absolute differences, AD, data between the determined subset of the first portion and the determined subset of the second portion;
• compute SAT data using the computed AD data and at least a portion of the SAT data stored in the buffer;
• replace a subset of the SAT data stored in the buffer with at least portions of the computed SAT data;
• calculate difference data between the first portion and the second portion using the SAT data stored in the buffer, wherein the difference data comprises a difference result for each of a plurality of comparisons between the first data and the second data;
• and
• store the calculated difference data between the first portion and the second portion to internal memory;
• and
• using the stored difference data to determine matched blocks of data between the first data and second data.