Core Image: Ultrafast and pixel-accurate image processing.
Ultrafast and pixel-accurate, Core Image harnesses the power of the graphics processing units, or GPUs, that are part of today’s powerful video cards. GPUs process an amazing amount of data — more than 6 billion pixels per second.
Powering Innovation
Until now, harnessing the power of the GPU required in-depth knowledge of pixel-level programming. Core Image allows developers to easily leverage these programmable GPUs for blistering-fast image processing that can eliminate rendering time delays. Filters and retouching effects can be expressed with a few lines of code. Core Image handles the rest, optimising the path to the GPU. The result is real-time, interactive responsiveness as you select and apply filters.
Both Aperture and Preview take advantage of Core Image to achieve their fast-launching, fast-rendering results — achieving virtually real-time effects even on RAW and HDR source files.
Fine-grained Detail
Core Image is powered by floating-point calculations, which produce extremely fine colour accuracy on a pixel-by-pixel basis. You see great detail, quality and range of colour that automatically scale with new generations of GPUs and CPUs.
Hardware Support
When a programmable GPU is present, Core Image utilises the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you’ll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of operations.
