1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for image processing, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for image processing with a cutting unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Nowadays, most image processing depends on CPU operations. Image processing requires a huge amount of operations, and therefore is a heavy burden on a CPU whether in computer or in image player applications.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a prior art image processing apparatus 100. The conventional image processing apparatus 100 comprises a CPU 10, a frame buffer 20, a compressed file (CF) 30, a random access memory (RAM) 50, and a video encoder 40.
Generally, the CPU 10 performs a decoding operation on the compressed file 30 after receiving the compressed file 30. One example of a compressed file is a JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) file. The CPU 10 decodes all compressed files and stores the files in the RAM 50 pixel by pixel.
In the prior art, image cutting is performed after decoding. For instance, according to the selected range of display, the CPU 10 sieves out the pixels corresponding to the selected range of display in the RAM 50, and loads the pixels from the RAM 50. Afterward, the CPU performs resizing and rotation operations on the pixels according to a user setting, and then stores the processed image data in the frame buffer 20. Finally, the video encoder 40 encodes the processed image data stored in the frame buffer 20 and outputs to a computer display or a TV screen (not shown in FIG. 1).
However, every image processing operation (including decoding operations), needs to be performed by the CPU 10 alone. Especially when performing image cutting, the CPU 10 needs to process a huge amount of pixels. Therefore, these special image processing operations ordered by users bring a heavy burden to the CPU 10, consequently it is likely that the display of the computer monitor or the TV screen will be adversely affected. These kinds of products will not be attractive to consumers.