TriCore-Based Digital Still Camera* I n this paper we describe the design and implementation of an efficient and compact image processing library for a digital still camera based on Siemens TriCore microcontroller-DSP processor. The library is designed for use in both off-line (non-real-time applications on NTbased Pentium platforms) as well as on-line (real-time embedded applications such as TriCore based systems). To satisfy the constraints of embedded systems in terms of memory limitations, the library was designed to operate on an input image using the concept of band processing. In such a method, the input image is divided into an appropriate number of data bands (strips). The image bands are then processed sequentially using a pipeline of band based operators. The processed bands are then collected into a single output image. Most of the operators incorporated in the library take advantage of the band processing mechanism and operate on a stream of such image bands. This scheme not only alleviates the memory space requirements but also lends itself to multithreading/parallel processing implementations with potential for even faster performance. The library was implemented in C and optimized for our target TriCore processor. The code size for the target system including baseline JPEG Codec and all other image processing pipeline operators described in the following sections is 31 Kb. The library can process a 10086800 image in 1.98 s.