Patent ID: 8773446

Claim:
A method for parallel processing of intra-image data in a state-based imaging system, the method comprising: receiving at least one customer expectation criteria with respect to a customer job intended to be processed by a state-based imaging system comprising w available resources, said customer criteria comprising at least a type of processing desired to be performed on said customer's job; selecting a desired number d of said available resources in said state-based imaging system which at least meet said customer's expectation criteria; using at least one segmentation resource to segment said image into k=min(w,d) image segments; using k pixel-level processors to process said k image segments into batches of processed pixels, each pixel-level processor operating on a respective k th segment in parallel; using at least one sorting resource to sort said batches of processed pixels into a plurality of ordered batches; using at least one merging resource to hierarchically merge said ordered batches into a plurality of merged batches of processed pixels; and concatenating said merged batches of processed pixels to obtain a processed image.