Improving Image Processing Systems by Using Software Simulated LRU Cache Algorithms

Today’s scientific progress is closely related with data processing, a process is implemented using algorithms, but in order to have a result, algorithms need data, and data are generated by sensors, particularly satellite imagery or collaborative GIS platforms. The progress has made those imaging capturing sensors more and more accurate therefore the generated data are becoming larger and larger. The problem is mostly related to the operating system and sometimes software design’s inability to manage contiguous spaces of memory. In an ironic turn of events, those data sometimes cannot be held all at once in a computer system to be analyzed. A solution needed to be devised to overcome this easy problem at first, but complex in implementation. The answer is somehow hidden, but is has been around since the birth of computer science, and is called a memory cache, which is basically at its origins a fast memory. We can adjust this concept in software programming by identifying the problem and coming up with an implementation. The data cache can be implemented in many various ways but here we will present one based on LRU (least recently used) algorithm mostly to handle three dimension arrays, called 3dCache which is widely compatible with software packages that supports external tools such as Matlab or a programming environment like C++.