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Vidhya Sudhan Loganathand646ae12018-11-19 15:18:20 +00001///
SiCong Li6d8b94a2019-11-21 18:22:38 +00002/// Copyright (c) 2017-2019 ARM Limited.
Vidhya Sudhan Loganathand646ae12018-11-19 15:18:20 +00003///
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Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +010024namespace arm_compute
25{
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +010026/**
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +010027@page architecture Library architecture
28
29@tableofcontents
30
Georgios Pinitascce2ea62019-10-04 13:52:11 +010031@section S4_1_1 Core vs Runtime libraries
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +010032
33The Core library is a low level collection of algorithms implementations, it is designed to be embedded in existing projects and applications:
34
35- It doesn't allocate any memory (All the memory allocations/mappings have to be handled by the caller).
36- It doesn't perform any kind of multi-threading (but provide information to the caller about how the workload can be split).
37
38The Runtime library is a very basic wrapper around the Core library which can be used for quick prototyping, it is basic in the sense that:
39
40- It allocates images and tensors by using standard malloc().
41- It multi-threads NEON code in a very basic way using a very simple pool of threads.
42- For OpenCL it uses the default CLScheduler command queue for all mapping operations and kernels.
43
44For maximum performance, it is expected that the users would re-implement an equivalent to the runtime library which suits better their needs (With a more clever multi-threading strategy, load-balancing between NEON and OpenCL, etc.)
45
Georgios Pinitascce2ea62019-10-04 13:52:11 +010046@section S4_1_2 Thread-safety
47
48Although the library supports multi-threading during workload dispatch, thus parallelizing the execution of the workload at multiple threads, the current runtime module implementation is not thread-safe in the sense of executing different functions from separate threads.
49This lies to the fact that the provided scheduling mechanism wasn't designed with thread-safety in mind.
50As it is true with the rest of the runtime library a custom scheduling mechanism can be re-implemented to account for thread-safety if needed and be injected as the library's default scheduler.
51
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +010052@section S4_2_windows_kernels_mt_functions Windows, kernels, multi-threading and functions
53
54@subsection S4_2_1_windows Windows
55
56A @ref Window represents a workload to execute, it can handle up to @ref Coordinates::num_max_dimensions dimensions.
57Each dimension is defined by a start, end and step.
58
59It can split into subwindows as long as *all* the following rules remain true for all the dimensions:
60
61- max[n].start() <= sub[n].start() < max[n].end()
62- sub[n].start() < sub[n].end() <= max[n].end()
63- max[n].step() == sub[n].step()
64- (sub[n].start() - max[n].start()) % max[n].step() == 0
65- (sub[n].end() - sub[n].start()) % max[n].step() == 0
66
67@subsection S4_2_2 Kernels
68
69Each implementation of the @ref IKernel interface (base class of all the kernels in the core library) works in the same way:
70
71OpenCL kernels:
72
73@code{.cpp}
74// Initialize the CLScheduler with the default context and default command queue
75// Implicitly initializes the CLKernelLibrary to use ./cl_kernels as location for OpenCL kernels files and sets a default device for which OpenCL programs are built.
76CLScheduler::get().default_init();
77
78cl::CommandQueue q = CLScheduler::get().queue();
79//Create a kernel object:
80MyKernel kernel;
81// Initialize the kernel with the input/output and options you want to use:
82kernel.configure( input, output, option0, option1);
83// Retrieve the execution window of the kernel:
84const Window& max_window = kernel.window();
85// Run the whole kernel in the current thread:
86kernel.run( q, max_window ); // Enqueue the kernel to process the full window on the default queue
87
88// Wait for the processing to complete:
89q.finish();
90@endcode
91
92NEON / CPP kernels:
93
94@code{.cpp}
95//Create a kernel object:
96MyKernel kernel;
97// Initialize the kernel with the input/output and options you want to use:
98kernel.configure( input, output, option0, option1);
99// Retrieve the execution window of the kernel:
100const Window& max_window = kernel.window();
101// Run the whole kernel in the current thread:
102kernel.run( max_window ); // Run the kernel on the full window
103@endcode
104
105@subsection S4_2_3 Multi-threading
106
107The previous section shows how to run a NEON / CPP kernel in the current thread, however if your system has several CPU cores, you will probably want the kernel to use several cores. Here is how this can be done:
108
Anthony Barbier52ecb062018-05-25 13:32:10 +0100109@code{.cpp}
110 ThreadInfo info;
111 info.cpu_info = &_cpu_info;
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100112
Anthony Barbier52ecb062018-05-25 13:32:10 +0100113 const Window &max_window = kernel->window();
114 const unsigned int num_iterations = max_window.num_iterations(split_dimension);
115 info.num_threads = std::min(num_iterations, _num_threads);
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100116
Anthony Barbier52ecb062018-05-25 13:32:10 +0100117 if(num_iterations == 0)
118 {
119 return;
120 }
121
122 if(!kernel->is_parallelisable() || info.num_threads == 1)
123 {
124 kernel->run(max_window, info);
125 }
126 else
127 {
128 int t = 0;
129 auto thread_it = _threads.begin();
130
131 for(; t < info.num_threads - 1; ++t, ++thread_it)
132 {
133 Window win = max_window.split_window(split_dimension, t, info.num_threads);
134 info.thread_id = t;
135 thread_it->start(kernel, win, info);
136 }
137
138 // Run last part on main thread
139 Window win = max_window.split_window(split_dimension, t, info.num_threads);
140 info.thread_id = t;
141 kernel->run(win, info);
142
143 try
144 {
145 for(auto &thread : _threads)
146 {
147 thread.wait();
148 }
149 }
150 catch(const std::system_error &e)
151 {
152 std::cerr << "Caught system_error with code " << e.code() << " meaning " << e.what() << '\n';
153 }
154 }
155@endcode
156
157This is a very basic implementation which was originally used in the NEON runtime library by all the NEON functions.
158
159@sa CPPScheduler
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100160
Moritz Pflanzerc186b572017-09-07 09:48:04 +0100161@note Some kernels like for example @ref NEHistogramKernel need some local temporary buffer to perform their calculations. In order to avoid memory corruption between threads, the local buffer must be of size: ```memory_needed_per_thread * num_threads``` and a unique thread_id between 0 and num_threads must be assigned to the @ref ThreadInfo object passed to the ```run``` function.
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100162
163@subsection S4_2_4 Functions
164
165Functions will automatically allocate the temporary buffers mentioned above, and will automatically multi-thread kernels' executions using the very basic scheduler described in the previous section.
166
167Simple functions only call a single kernel (e.g @ref NEConvolution3x3), while more complex ones consist of several kernels pipelined together (e.g @ref NEGaussianPyramid, @ref NEHarrisCorners). Check their documentation to find out which kernels are used by each function.
168
169@code{.cpp}
170//Create a function object:
171MyFunction function;
172// Initialize the function with the input/output and options you want to use:
173function.configure( input, output, option0, option1);
174// Execute the function:
175function.run();
176@endcode
177
178@warning The Compute Library requires Mali OpenCL DDK r8p0 or higher (OpenCL kernels are compiled using the -cl-arm-non-uniform-work-group-size flag)
179
180@note All OpenCL functions and objects in the runtime library use the command queue associated with CLScheduler for all operations, a real implementation would be expected to use different queues for mapping operations and kernels in order to reach a better GPU utilization.
181
182@subsection S4_4_1_cl_scheduler OpenCL Scheduler and kernel library
183
184The Compute Library runtime uses a single command queue and context for all the operations.
185
186The user can get / set this context and command queue through CLScheduler's interface.
187
188The user can get / set the target GPU device through the CLScheduler's interface.
189
190@attention Make sure the application is using the same context as the library as in OpenCL it is forbidden to share objects across contexts. This is done by calling @ref CLScheduler::init() or @ref CLScheduler::default_init() at the beginning of your application.
191
192@attention Make sure the scheduler's target is not changed after function classes are created.
193
194All OpenCL kernels used by the library are built and stored in @ref CLKernelLibrary.
195If the library is compiled with embed_kernels=0 the application can set the path to the OpenCL kernels by calling @ref CLKernelLibrary::init(), by default the path is set to "./cl_kernels"
196
197@subsection S4_4_2_events_sync OpenCL events and synchronization
198
199In order to block until all the jobs in the CLScheduler's command queue are done executing the user can call @ref CLScheduler::sync() or create a sync event using @ref CLScheduler::enqueue_sync_event()
200
201For example:
202@snippet cl_events.cpp OpenCL events
203
204@subsection S4_4_2_cl_neon OpenCL / NEON interoperability
205
206You can mix OpenCL and NEON kernels and functions. However it is the user's responsibility to handle the mapping/unmapping of OpenCL objects, for example:
207
208@snippet neoncl_scale_median_gaussian.cpp NEON / OpenCL Interop
209
210@sa main_neoncl_scale_median_gaussian
211
212@section S4_5_algorithms Algorithms
213
Anthony Barbier14c86a92017-12-14 16:27:41 +0000214All computer vision algorithms in this library have been implemented following the [OpenVX 1.1 specifications](https://www.khronos.org/registry/vx/specs/1.1/html/). Please refer to the Khronos documentation for more information.
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100215
216@section S4_6_images_tensors Images, padding, border modes and tensors
217
218Most kernels and functions in the library process images, however, in order to be future proof most of the kernels actually accept tensors. See below for more information about how they are related.
219
220@attention Each memory object can be written by only one kernel, however it can be read by several kernels. Writing to the same object from several kernels will result in undefined behavior. The kernel writing to an object must be configured before the kernel(s) reading from it.
221
222@subsection S4_6_1_padding_and_border Padding and border modes
223
224Several algorithms require a neighborhood around the current pixel to compute it's value. This means the algorithm will not be able to process the borders of the image unless you give it more information about how those border pixels should be processed. The @ref BorderMode enum is used for this purpose.
225
226You have 3 types of @ref BorderMode :
227
228- @ref BorderMode::UNDEFINED : Neighbor pixels outside of the image are treated as undefined. As a result all the pixels which are on the border will have a value which is undefined.
229- @ref BorderMode::REPLICATE : Neighbor pixels outside of the image are treated as having the same value as the closest valid pixel.
230- @ref BorderMode::CONSTANT : Neighbor pixels outside of the image are treated as having the same constant value. (The user can choose what this value should be).
231
232Moreover both OpenCL and NEON use vector loads and stores instructions to access the data in buffers, so in order to avoid having special cases to handle for the borders all the images and tensors used in this library must be padded.
233
234@subsubsection padding Padding
235
236There are different ways padding can be calculated:
237
238- Accurate padding:
239
240@snippet neon_convolution.cpp Accurate padding
241
242@note It's important to call allocate @b after the function is configured: if the image / tensor is already allocated then the function will shrink its execution window instead of increasing the padding. (See below for more details).
243
244- Manual padding / no padding / auto padding: You can allocate your images / tensors up front (before configuring your functions). In that case the function will use whatever padding is available and will shrink its execution window if there isn't enough padding available (which translates into a smaller valid region for the output). See also @ref valid_region).
245If you don't want to manually set the padding but still want to allocate your objects upfront then you can use auto_padding. It guarantees that the allocation will have enough padding to run any of the provided functions.
246
247@code{.cpp}
248Image src, dst;
249
250// Use auto padding for the input:
251src.info()->init_auto_padding(TensorShape(640u,480u), Format::U8);
252
253// Use manual padding for the destination image
254dst.info()->init(src.info()->tensor_shape(), Format::U8, strides_in_bytes, offset_first_element_in_bytes, total_size_in_bytes);
255
256// Allocate all the images
257src.allocator()->allocate();
258dst.allocator()->allocate();
259// Fill the input image with the content of the PPM image if a filename was provided:
260fill_image(src);
261
262NEGaussian3x3 gauss;
263
264// Apply a Gaussian 3x3 filter to the source image (Note: if the padding provided is not enough then the execution window and valid region of the output will be shrunk)
265gauss.configure(&src, &dst, BorderMode::UNDEFINED);
266
267//Execute the functions:
268gauss.run();
269@endcode
270
271@warning Some kernels need up to 3 neighbor values to calculate the value of a given pixel. Therefore, to be safe, we use a 4-pixel padding all around the image. In addition, some kernels read and write up to 32 pixels at the same time. To cover that case as well we add an extra 32 pixels of padding at the end of each row. As a result auto padded buffers waste a lot of memory and are less cache friendly. It is therefore recommended to use accurate padding or manual padding wherever possible.
272
273@subsubsection valid_region Valid regions
274
275Some kernels (like edge detectors for example) need to read values of neighboring pixels to calculate the value of a given pixel, it is therefore not possible to calculate the values of the pixels on the edges.
276
277Another case is: if a kernel processes 8 pixels per iteration and the image's dimensions are not a multiple of 8 and not enough padding is available then the kernel will not be able to process the pixels near the right edge. As a result these pixels will be left undefined.
278
279In order to know which pixels have been calculated, each kernel sets a valid region for each output image or tensor. See also @ref TensorInfo::valid_region(), @ref ValidRegion
280
281@subsection S4_6_2_tensors Tensors
282
283Tensors are multi-dimensional arrays with a maximum of @ref Coordinates::num_max_dimensions dimensions.
284
285Depending on the number of dimensions tensors can be interpreted as various objects. A scalar can be represented as a zero-dimensional tensor and a vector of numbers can be represented as an one-dimensional tensor. Further, an image is actually just a 2D tensor, a 3D tensor can be seen as an array of images and a 4D tensor as a 2D array of images, etc.
286
287@note Most algorithms process images (i.e a 2D slice of the tensor), therefore only padding along the X and Y axes is required (2D slices can be stored contiguously in memory).
288
289@subsection S4_6_3_description_conventions Images and Tensors description conventions
290
291Image objects are defined by a @ref Format and dimensions expressed as [width, height, batch]
292
293Tensors are defined by a @ref DataType plus a number of channels (Always expected to be 1 for now) and their dimensions are expressed as [width, height, feature_maps, batch].
294
295In other words, the lower three dimensions of a tensor specify a single input in [width, height, feature_maps], while any other specified dimension represents a batch in the appropriate dimension space.
296For example, a tensor with dimensions [128, 128, 64, 16] represents a 1D batch space with 16 batches of 128 elements in width and height and 64 feature maps each.
297Each kernel specifies the expected layout of each of its tensors in its documentation.
298
299@note Unless specified otherwise in the kernel's or function's documentation all tensors and images parameters passed must have identical dimensions.
300
301@note Unless specified otherwise in the kernel's or function's documentation the number of channels for tensors is expected to be 1 (For images, the number of channels is inferred from the @ref Format).
302
303@attention Regardless of the @ref DataType used by a tensor the @ref ITensor::buffer() method will always return a uint8_t pointer, and all the metadata in @ref TensorInfo will be expressed in bytes. It is the user's responsibility to cast the pointer to the correct type.
304
305For example, to read the element located at the coordinates (x,y) of a float tensor:
306
307@code{.cpp}
308float value = *reinterpret_cast<float*>(input.buffer() + input.info()->offset_element_in_bytes(Coordinates(x,y)));
309@endcode
310
311@subsection S4_6_4_working_with_objects Working with Images and Tensors using iterators
312
313The library provides some iterators to access objects' data.
314Iterators are created by associating a data object (An image or a tensor for example) with an iteration window.
315
316Iteration windows are defined by an array of dimensions, each of which consists of a start, end and step.
317
318The @ref execute_window_loop function takes an execution window, a lambda function and one or more iterators.
319It will iterate through every element of the execution window and for each element it will update the iterators accordingly and call the lambda function.
320
321Here are a couple of examples of how to use the iterators to fill / read tensors:
322
323@snippet examples/neon_copy_objects.cpp Copy objects example
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100324
Georgios Pinitas98f085b2018-07-09 20:21:08 +0100325@subsection S4_6_5_sub_tensors Sub-tensors
326
327Sub-tensors are aliases to existing Tensors, as a result creating a sub-tensor does not result in any underlying memory allocation.
328
329Sub-tensors can be used to access a sub-set of the parent tensor, something that can be useful in case different operations need to be performed on different parts of a tensor.
330
331Moreover, sub-tensors can be used to perform zero copy tensor concatenation.
332
333The API for creating a sub-tensor is the following:
334@code{.cpp}
335SubTensor(ITensor *parent, const TensorShape &tensor_shape, const Coordinates &coords)
336@endcode
337
338Where \a parent is the parent tensor which we want to create an alias for, \a tensor_shape is the shape of the sub-tensor and \a coords are the starting indexing coordinates of the sub-tensor within the parent tensor.
339
340@note Two sub-tensor concrete classes for different targets are currently supported : @ref CLSubTensor and @ref SubTensor
341
342@warning Limitation of the sub-tensor is that it cannot be extracted spatially, meaning sub-tensors should have the same width and height as the parent tensor. The main reasons for this is the fact that individual kernels might need to operate with a step size that is not a multiple of the sub-tensor spatial dimension. This could lead to elements being overwritten by different kernels operating on different sub-tensors of the same underlying tensor.
343
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100344@section S4_7_memory_manager MemoryManager
345
346@ref IMemoryManager is a memory managing interface that can be used to reduce the memory requirements of a given pipeline by recycling temporary buffers.
347
348@subsection S4_7_1_memory_manager_components MemoryGroup, MemoryPool and MemoryManager Components
349
350@subsubsection S4_7_1_1_memory_group MemoryGroup
351
352@ref IMemoryGroup defines the memory managing granularity.
353
354MemoryGroup binds a number of objects to a bucket of memory requirements that need to be fulfilled in order for an operation or list of operations to be executed.
355
356Requesting backing memory for a specific group can be done using @ref IMemoryGroup::acquire and releasing the memory back using @ref IMemoryGroup::release.
357
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100358@subsubsection S4_7_1_2_memory_pool MemoryPool
359
360@ref IMemoryPool defines a pool of memory that can be used to provide backing memory to a memory group.
361
362@note @ref BlobMemoryPool is currently implemented which models the memory requirements as a vector of distinct memory blobs.
363
364@subsubsection S4_7_1_2_memory_manager_components MemoryManager Components
365
366@ref IMemoryManager consists of two components:
367- @ref ILifetimeManager that keeps track of the lifetime of the registered objects of the memory groups and given an @ref IAllocator creates an appropriate memory pool that fulfils the memory requirements of all the registered memory groups.
368- @ref IPoolManager that safely manages the registered memory pools.
369
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100370@note @ref BlobLifetimeManager is currently implemented which models the memory requirements as a vector of distinct memory blobs.
371
372@subsection S4_7_2_working_with_memory_manager Working with the Memory Manager
373Using a memory manager to reduce the memory requirements of a pipeline can be summed in the following steps:
374
375Initially a memory manager must be set-up:
376@code{.cpp}
377Allocator allocator{}; // Create an allocator to use for the backing memory allocation
378auto lifetime_mgr = std::make_shared<BlobLifetimeManager>(); // Create Lifetime Manager
379auto pool_mgr = std::make_shared<PoolManager>(); // Create Pool Manager
380auto mm = std::make_shared<MemoryManagerOnDemand>(lifetime_mgr, pool_mgr); // Create Memory Manager
381@endcode
382
383Once done, memory groups can be registered to use the memory manager:
384@code{.cpp}
385MemoryGroup memory_group(mm); // Create a memory group and set the memory manager to use
386@endcode
387
388@note If a memory manager is not specified then all allocation will be immediate instead of deferred through the memory manager.
389
390Next step is to set objects to be managed by the memory group. It is important though to note that the lifetime of an object is tracked from the @ref MemoryGroup::manage() and the @ref TensorAllocator::allocate calls.
391@ref MemoryGroup::manage flags that the object will be needed starting now and when @ref TensorAllocator::allocate is called it signals the end of the object lifetime.
392@code{.cpp}
393Tensor tmp1, tmp2, tmp3; // Create example tensors
394memory_group.manage(&tmp1); // Start managing object tmp1 and start its lifetime
395memory_group.manage(&tmp2); // Start managing object tmp2 and start its lifetime
396
397operation1.configure(&tmp1, &tmp2); // Configure a function/kernel using tmp1 and tmp2
398
399tmp1.allocator()->allocate(); // Flag that the lifetime of object tmp1 has ended
400
401memory_group.manage(&tmp3); // Start managing object tmp3 and start its lifetime
402
403operation2.configure(&tmp2, &tmp3); // Configure a function/kernel using tmp2 and tmp3
404
405tmp2.allocator()->allocate(); // Flag that the lifetime of object tmp2 has ended
406tmp3.allocator()->allocate(); // Flag that the lifetime of object tmp3 has ended
407@endcode
408
409@warning The configuration step should be done sequentially by a single thread so that all the lifetimes are captured correclty.
410
Georgios Pinitas9da19e92018-10-11 15:33:11 +0100411When configuration of all the operations is finished then the memory manager have to be populated:
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100412@code{.cpp}
Georgios Pinitas9da19e92018-10-11 15:33:11 +0100413mm->populate(&allocator), 2 /* num_pools */); // Populate memory manager pools
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100414@endcode
415
416Finally, during execution of the pipeline the memory of the appropriate memory group should be requested before running:
417@code{.cpp}
418memory_group.acquire(); // Request memory for the group
419
420operation1.run(); // Run operation1
421operation2.run(); // Run operation2
422
423memory_group.release(); // Release memory so that it can be reused
424@endcode
425@note Execution of a pipeline can be done in a multi-threading environment as memory acquisition/release are thread safe.
Michalis Spyrou2dab2e92019-11-12 16:28:47 +0000426@note If you are handling sensitive data and it's required to zero out the memory buffers before freeing, make sure to also zero out the intermediate buffers. You can access the buffers through the memory group's mappings.
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100427
428@subsection S4_7_3_memory_manager_function_support Function support
429
430Most of the library's function have been ported to use @ref IMemoryManager for their internal temporary buffers.
431
432If that is the case, a memory manager can be passed to them during construction to reuse memory among these functions.
433@code{.cpp}
434// Setup Memory Manager
435CLBufferAllocator allocator{}; // Create an allocator to use for the backing memory allocation
436auto lifetime_mgr = std::make_shared<BlobLifetimeManager>(); // Create Lifetime Manager
437auto pool_mgr = std::make_shared<PoolManager>(); // Create Pool Manager
438auto mm = std::make_shared<MemoryManagerOnDemand>(lifetime_mgr, pool_mgr); // Create Memory Manager
439
440// Create two convolution layers and use the memory manager to manager their internal temporary buffers
441CLConvolutionLayer conv1(mm), conv2(mm);
442
443// Configure layers
444conv1.configure(...);
445conv2.configure(...);
446
Georgios Pinitas9da19e92018-10-11 15:33:11 +0100447// Populate memory manager
448mm->populate(&allocator), 1 /* num_pools */); // Populate memory manager pools
Georgios Pinitas74180bb2017-09-26 19:28:02 +0100449
450// Run layers (Memory will be recycled for internal buffers for conv1 and conv2
451conv1.run();
452conv2.run();
453@endcode
Anthony Barbier3762e742018-03-02 11:49:33 +0000454
Georgios Pinitasdb09b372019-06-17 17:46:17 +0100455@section S4_8_import_memory Import Memory Interface
456
457The implemented @ref TensorAllocator and @ref CLTensorAllocator objects provide an interface capable of importing existing memory to a tensor as backing memory.
458
459A simple NEON example can be the following:
460@code{.cpp}
461// External backing memory
462void* external_ptr = ...;
463
464// Create and initialize tensor
465Tensor tensor;
466tensor.allocator()->init(tensor_info);
467
468// Import existing pointer as backing memory
469tensor.allocator()->import_memory(external_ptr);
470@endcode
471
472It is important to note the following:
473- Ownership of the backing memory is not transferred to the tensor itself.
474- The tensor mustn't be memory managed.
475- Padding requirements should be accounted by the client code. In other words, if padding is required by the tensor after the function configuration step, then the imported backing memory should account for it. Padding can be checked through the @ref TensorInfo::padding() interface.
476
477@section S4_9_opencl_tuner OpenCL Tuner
Anthony Barbier3762e742018-03-02 11:49:33 +0000478
479OpenCL kernels when dispatched to the GPU take two arguments:
480- The Global Workgroup Size (GWS): That's the number of times to run an OpenCL kernel to process all the elements we want to process.
481- The Local Workgroup Size (LWS): That's the number of elements we want to run in parallel on a GPU core at a given point in time.
482
483The LWS can be required by an algorithm (For example if it contains memory barriers or uses local memory) but it can also be used for performance reasons to tweak the performance of a kernel: the execution time of the overall kernel might vary significantly depending on how the GWS is broken down.
484
485However, there is no universal rule regarding which LWS is best for a given kernel, so instead we created the @ref CLTuner.
486
487When the @ref CLTuner is enabled ( Target = 2 for the graph examples), the first time an OpenCL kernel is executed the Compute Library will try to run it with a variety of LWS values and will remember which one performed best for subsequent runs. At the end of the run the @ref graph::Graph will try to save these tuning parameters to a file.
488
Vidhya Sudhan Loganathandc5d3432019-04-29 11:44:11 +0100489However this process takes quite a lot of time, which is why it cannot be enabled all the time. @ref CLTuner supports three modes of tuning with different trade-offs between the time taken to tune and the kernel execution time achieved using the best LWS found. In the Exhaustive mode, it searches all the supported values of LWS. This mode takes the longest time to tune and is the most likely to find the optimal LWS. Normal mode searches a subset of LWS values to yield a good approximation of the optimal LWS. It takes less time to tune than Exhaustive mode. Rapid mode takes the shortest time to tune and finds an LWS value that is at least as good or better than the default LWS value. The mode affects only the search for the optimal LWS and has no effect when the LWS value is imported from a file.
Anthony Barbier3762e742018-03-02 11:49:33 +0000490
491But, when the @ref CLTuner is disabled ( Target = 1 for the graph examples), the @ref graph::Graph will try to reload the file containing the tuning parameters, then for each executed kernel the Compute Library will use the fine tuned LWS if it was present in the file or use a default LWS value if it's not.
492
Michalis Spyrou422da262019-10-18 15:19:33 +0100493@section S4_10_weights_manager Weights Manager
494
495@ref IWeightsManager is a weights managing interface that can be used to reduce the memory requirements of a given pipeline by reusing transformed weights across multiple function executions.
496@ref IWeightsManager is responsible for managing weight tensors alongside with their transformations.
497@ref ITransformWeights provides an interface for running the desired transform function. This interface is used by the weights manager.
498
499@subsection S4_10_1_working_with_weights_manager Working with the Weights Manager
500Following is a simple example that uses the weights manager:
501
502Initially a weights manager must be set-up:
503@code{.cpp}
504auto wm = std::make_shared<IWeightsManager>(); // Create a weights manager
505@endcode
506
507Once done, weights can be managed, configured and run:
508@code{.cpp}
509wm->manage(weights); // Manage the weights
510wm->acquire(weights, &_reshape_weights_managed_function); // Acquire the address of the transformed weights based on the transform function
511wm->run(weights, &_reshape_weights_managed_function); // Run the transpose function
512@endcode
513
Georgios Pinitas45ce5662019-10-16 16:49:39 +0100514@section S5_0_experimental Experimental Features
515
516@subsection S5_1_run_time_context Run-time Context
517
518Some of the Compute Library components are modelled as singletons thus posing limitations to supporting some use-cases and ensuring a more client-controlled API.
519Thus, we are introducing an aggregate service interface @ref IRuntimeContext which will encapsulate the services that the singletons were providing and allow better control of these by the client code.
520Run-time context encapsulates a list of mechanisms, some of them are: scheduling, memory management, kernel caching and others.
521Consequently, this will allow better control of these services among pipelines when Compute Library is integrated in higher level frameworks.
522
523This feature introduces some changes to our API.
524All the kernels/functions will now accept a Runtime Context object which will allow the function to use the mentioned services.
525Moreover, all the objects will require to be created using the context to have access to these services.
526Note that these will apply to the runtime components as the core ones do not need access to such services. The only exception is the kernel caching mechanism which will need to be passed down at kernel level.
527
528Finally, we will try to adapt our code-base progressively to use the new mechanism but will continue supporting the legacy mechanism to allow a smooth transition. Changes will apply to all our three backends: NEON, OpenCL and OpenGL ES.
Anthony Barbier6ff3b192017-09-04 18:44:23 +0100529*/
530} // namespace arm_compute