Patent ID: 7405736

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computer program for effecting efficient conversion on a computer processor having a single instruction, multiple data floating point operation instruction set between sensory data represented in a non-linear scale sensory data model and representation in a linear scale sensory data model, where the non-linear and linear scale sensory data models are related by a conversion function involving a computationally expensive exponential power function, the software program code comprising: first program code evaluating a first exponential function of plural items of the sensory data using single instruction, multiple data instructions for at least one of square, square root and reciprocal operations; second program code evaluating a second exponential function of the plural items of the sensory data using single instruction, multiple data instructions for at least one of square, square root and reciprocal operations; third program code combining the first and second exponential functions of the plural items to approximate the computationally expensive exponential power function of the plural items; and fourth program code evaluating the conversion function on the plural items using the approximation of the computationally expensive exponential power function of the plural items produced by the third program code to effect conversion of the plural items between the data models.