I'm trying to make a mobile fast version of Gaussian Blur image filter.
I've read other questions, like: Fast Gaussian blur on unsigned char image- ARM Neon Intrinsics- iOS Dev
For my purpose i need only a fixed size (7x7) fixed sigma (2) Gaussian filter.
So, before optimizing for ARM NEON, I'm implementing 1D Gaussian Kernel in C++, and comparing performance with OpenCV GaussianBlur() method directly in mobile environment (Android with NDK). This way it will result in a much simpler code to optimize.
However the result is that my implementation is 10 times slower then OpenCV4Android version. I've read that OpenCV4 Tegra have optimized GaussianBlur implementation, but I don't think that standard OpenCV4Android have those kind of optimizations, so why is my code so slow?
Here is my implementation (note: reflect101 is used for pixel reflection when applying filter near borders):
Mat myGaussianBlur(Mat src){
Mat dst(src.rows, src.cols, CV_8UC1);
Mat temp(src.rows, src.cols, CV_8UC1);
float sum, x1, y1;
// coefficients of 1D gaussian kernel with sigma = 2
double coeffs[] = {0.06475879783, 0.1209853623, 0.1760326634, 0.1994711402, 0.1760326634, 0.1209853623, 0.06475879783};
//Normalize coeffs
float coeffs_sum = 0.9230247873f;
for (int i = 0; i < 7; i++){
coeffs[i] /= coeffs_sum;
}
// filter vertically
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
for(int x = 0; x < src.cols; x++){
sum = 0.0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
y1 = reflect101(src.rows, y - i);
sum += coeffs[i + 3]*src.at<uchar>(y1, x);
}
temp.at<uchar>(y,x) = sum;
}
}
// filter horizontally
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
for(int x = 0; x < src.cols; x++){
sum = 0.0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
x1 = reflect101(src.rows, x - i);
sum += coeffs[i + 3]*temp.at<uchar>(y, x1);
}
dst.at<uchar>(y,x) = sum;
}
}
return dst;
}
This is the code after implementing all the suggestions of @Paul R and @sh1, summarized as follows:
1) use only integer arithmetic (with precision to taste)
2) add the values of the pixels at the same distance from the mask center before applying the multiplications, to reduce the number of multiplications.
3) apply only horizontal filters to take advantage of the storage by rows of the matrices
4) separate cycles around the edges from those inside the image not to make unnecessary calls to reflection functions. I totally removed the functions of reflection, including them inside the loops along the edges.
5) In addition, as a personal observation, to improve rounding without calling a (slow) function "round" or "cvRound", I've added to both temporary and final pixel results 0.5f (= 32768 in integers precision) to reduce the error / difference compared to OpenCV.
Now the performance is much better from about 15 to about 6 times slower than OpenCV.
However, the resulting matrix is not perfectly identical to that obtained with the Gaussian Blur of OpenCV. This is not due to arithmetic length (sufficient) as well as removing the error remains. Note that this is a minimum difference, between 0 and 2 (in absolute value) of pixel intensity, between the matrices resulting from the two versions. Coefficient are the same used by OpenCV, obtained with getGaussianKernel with same size and sigma.
Mat myGaussianBlur(Mat src){
Mat dst(src.rows, src.cols, CV_8UC1);
Mat temp(src.rows, src.cols, CV_8UC1);
int sum;
int x1;
double coeffs[] = {0.070159, 0.131075, 0.190713, 0.216106, 0.190713, 0.131075, 0.070159};
int coeffs_i[7] = { 0 };
for (int i = 0; i < 7; i++){
coeffs_i[i] = (int)(coeffs[i] * 65536); //65536
}
// filter horizontally - inside the image
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = src.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = 3; x < (src.cols - 3); x++){
sum = ptr[x] * coeffs_i[3];
for(int i = -3; i < 0; i++){
int tmp = ptr[x+i] + ptr[x-i];
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*tmp;
}
temp.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
// filter horizontally - edges - needs reflect
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = src.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = 0; x <= 2; x++){
sum = 0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
x1 = x + i;
if(x1 < 0){
x1 = -x1;
}
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*ptr[x1];
}
temp.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = src.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = (src.cols - 3); x < src.cols; x++){
sum = 0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
x1 = x + i;
if(x1 >= src.cols){
x1 = 2*src.cols - x1 - 2;
}
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*ptr[x1];
}
temp.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
// transpose to apply again horizontal filter - better cache data locality
transpose(temp, temp);
// filter horizontally - inside the image
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = temp.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = 3; x < (src.cols - 3); x++){
sum = ptr[x] * coeffs_i[3];
for(int i = -3; i < 0; i++){
int tmp = ptr[x+i] + ptr[x-i];
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*tmp;
}
dst.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
// filter horizontally - edges - needs reflect
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = temp.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = 0; x <= 2; x++){
sum = 0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
x1 = x + i;
if(x1 < 0){
x1 = -x1;
}
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*ptr[x1];
}
dst.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
for(int y = 0; y < src.rows; y++){
uchar *ptr = temp.ptr<uchar>(y);
for(int x = (src.cols - 3); x < src.cols; x++){
sum = 0;
for(int i = -3; i <= 3; i++){
x1 = x + i;
if(x1 >= src.cols){
x1 = 2*src.cols - x1 - 2;
}
sum += coeffs_i[i + 3]*ptr[x1];
}
dst.at<uchar>(y,x) = (sum + 32768) / 65536;
}
}
transpose(dst, dst);
return dst;
}