Patent ID: 6867782

Claim:
A method of processing image data in an image processing system comprising: (a) storing instructions and a data structure representing processing to be performed on source image data in image storage means, (b) defining a sequence of operations to be performed in order to process said source image data in accordance with said data structure, wherein; (i) said data structure includes a plurality of image processing nodes; (ii) processing nodes are connected to each other to define a processing pipeline for image data; (c) displaying a graphical user interface to facilitate user interaction with said data structure, wherein said graphical user interface comprises: (i) a graphical representation of an intermediate process node of said data structure; (ii) a graphical representation of a node cache preference for the intermediate process node; (d) updating said data structure in response to a user manipulation of said graphical representation of the node cache preference; (e) processing image data in response to said data structure; (f) storing, in a cache, image data associated with the immediate process node in response to the node cache preference; and (g) subsequently processing image data in response to parts of said data structure not cached by said intermediate node.