CHS: Small: Translating Compilers for Visual Computing in Dynamic Languages

这个合作项目正在开发技术，使学生，科学家和其他非专家开发人员能够使用计算机语言，促进快速原型设计，但仍然自动转换这些程序，以具有高性能。在这项研究中，PI和co-PI专注于对视觉数据进行操作的程序，例如计算机图形学，计算机视觉和可视化程序。视觉数据很重要，因为视觉数据集的规模正在迅速增长，这是由于手机摄像头的使用，在线照片和视频共享以及科学和医学成像。其智力优势在于，专门针对视觉计算和支持快速原型的语言开发了专门的程序优化，以及允许计算机自动搜索不同候选优化并选择最快的优化的技术。该项目更广泛的意义和重要性在于，它将使编写在可视化数据集上运行的计算机程序更容易为新手程序员所接受，使可视化计算更容易为更广泛的受众所接受，允许更快地研究和开发可视化程序，并使此类程序本身更有效。这个研究项目正在生产翻译编译器，专门处理对可视数据进行计算的程序。PI领导的小组正在研究新的编译器，将动态语言的代码翻译成目标语言的高效代码。动态语言被定义为具有非常动态的运行时模型的语言，例如MATLAB，Python和JavaScript。目标语言是诸如C之类的允许实现高效程序的语言。这个研究框架结合了编译器，图形，计算机视觉，视觉感知，形式和自然语言的想法。这项研究将作出一些重要的智力贡献。首先，新的特定于领域的翻译和视觉计算优化将被形式化为可以应用于任何输入程序的手动规则。其次，该团队将研究一种自动学习翻译的新方法，而不是使用手动编码的规则。这可以采取从人类那里学习翻译“建议”的形式，人类可以交互地建议更好的输出代码。第三，基于离线自动调整的新搜索过程将用于选择产生最快程序的翻译。该项目的成功将通过计算机视觉和图形的综合测试套件进行验证。

This collaborative project is developing technologies to enable students, scientists, and other non-expert developers to use computer languages that facilitate rapid prototyping, and yet still automatically convert such programs to have high performance. In this research, the PI and co-PIs focus on programs that operate over visual data, such as programs in computer graphics, computer vision, and visualization. Visual data is important because visual datasets are rapidly growing in size, due to the use of cell-phone cameras, photo and video sharing online, and in scientific and medical imaging. The intellectual merits are that specialized program optimizations are being developed specifically for visual computing and for languages that enable rapid prototyping, alongside techniques that allow the computer to automatically search through different candidate optimizations and choose the fastest one. The project's broader significance and importance are that it will make the writing of computer programs that operate over visual datasets more accessible to novice programmers, make visual computing more accessible to a broader audience, permit faster research and development over visual programs, and make such programs themselves be more efficient.More specifically, this research program is producing translating compilers that are specialized to handle programs that compute over visual data. The group led by the PI is researching new compilers that translate code from dynamic languages into highly efficient code in a target language. Dynamic languages are defined as those with a very dynamic run-time model, for example, MATLAB, Python, and Javascript. The target language is a language such as C that permits implementation of highly efficient programs. This research framework incorporates ideas from compilers, graphics, computer vision, visual perception, and formal and natural languages. The research will make a number of key intellectual contributions. First, new domain-specific translations and optimizations for visual computing will be formalized into manual rules that can be applied to any input program. Second, the team will research a novel approach of automatically learning translations, instead of using manually-coded rules. This can take the form of learning translation "suggestions" from humans, who can interactively suggest better output code. Third, a new search process based on offline auto-tuning will be used to select the translations that result in the fastest program. The success of the project will be verified against a comprehensive test suite of programs from computer vision and graphics.