Dataflow specification for system level synthesis of 3D graphics applications

3D graphics is becoming an important application area together with multimedia applications. The dynamic behavior of 3D graphics application brings new challenges for system level specification and synthesis methodologies. Although existing dataflow models are successfully used for DSP system design, they are not sufficient to deal with 3D graphics algorithms since they are lacking in global state management and dynamic behavior handling. In this paper, we propose an extended synchronous piggybacked dataflow model with dynamic constructs for representing 3D graphics algorithm. We also present implementation techniques for software and hardware synthesis from the specification. With a simple 3D graphics pipeline, we show the novelty and usefulness of the proposed specification model