Altera Embedded Systems Development Kit, Cyclone III Edition - Manual (Page 61)

9–3 Development Board Version 1.0. Altera Corporation
Altera Embedded Systems Development Kit, Cyclone III Edition July 2010
Altera Mandelbrot C2H Demo
About the Mandelbrot Set
The Mandelbrot Set is a mathematical set of complex numbers when
graphed form a fractal. The Mandelbrot set is generated from a
surprisingly simple algorithm involving only multiplication and addition
operations to produce a shape of infinite subtle variation. Though the
Mandelbrot set is intriguing in itself, the Mandelbrot C2H Demo on the
Nios II Development Kit, Cyclone III Edition showcases a powerful
solution to a common engineering problem: increasing the performance
of a system bound by processing throughput.
1 This example design shows a greater than 500x improvement in
performance between software only and software with
hardware accelerators! The Nios II C-to-Hardware (C2H)
Acceleration Compiler was used to take the Mandelbrot
algorithm and automatically generate a hardware accelerator
that provides processing offloading of the same alogorithm.
The Nios II C2H Compiler, takes standard ANSI C code, in this case the
Mandelbrot algorithm and automatically generates hardware
accelerators. In the hardware accelerated version of the design the Nios II
processor handles common video functions such as the rendering the
image, panning, zooming, user interface management etc. The hardware
accelerator concentrates on generating the pixel data by computing the
Mandelbrot function while information is being prepared for it to
calculate the next frame.
You can use the demo to observe the differences between a general
purpose processor executing software and a hardware accelerator
performing the same functionality. When comparing the software-only
version to the hardware accelerated version, you should expect to see a
500 times (or just x) speed improvement between the image rendering
performance between the software and hardware versions of the same
algorithm.
Using the Mandelbrot application
The Mandelbrot application utilizes the LCD Color Touch-screen for all
user interactions. Loading and operating the Mandelbrot design is
explained below:
1. Power on the board by enabling the Power switch. You will see the
Application Selector menu on the LCD Touch Screen Display.
2. Select Mandelbrot Application by touching it in the application
selector menu.