Benchmarking

.gitignore

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 build/
 docs/html/
 .vscode/
-.json
+.json
+__pycache__/

BUILD.md

@@ -108,6 +108,7 @@ These are set with `-D<OPTION>=<ON|OFF>` at the `cmake ..` configure step, e.g.
 | `ENABLE_E2E_TESTS` | `ON` | Adds the e2e lit suite (`tests/lit/e2e/`, the `e2e` build target). Set to `OFF` to skip building/copying it, e.g. if `lit` isn't available. |
 | `ENABLE_CLANG_TIDY` | `OFF` | Runs `clang-tidy` as part of the normal build (`-warnings-as-errors=*`), using the project's `.clang-tidy` config. Requires `clang-tidy` to be on your `PATH`. |
 | `ENABLE_DOCS` | `OFF` | Adds a `doc_doxygen` build target that generates the Doxygen API docs into `docs/html/` (requires Doxygen to be installed). Build it explicitly with `cmake --build . --target doc_doxygen`. |
+| `ENABLE_BENCH` | `ON` | Adds the `bench/` subdirectory, building the standalone `reference_bench` binary (naive C++ vs OpenCV timings; no MLIR/picceler runtime dependency). |
 
 ### Build type
 

CMakeLists.txt

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ option(ENABLE_TESTS "Enable testing" ON)
 option(ENABLE_E2E_TESTS "Enable end-to-end (compile-and-run) tests" ON)
 option(ENABLE_CLANG_TIDY "Enable clang-tidy" OFF)
 option(ENABLE_DOCS "Enable documentation generation" OFF)
+option(ENABLE_BENCH "Enable the reference_bench benchmark target" ON)
 
 set(CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS ON CACHE BOOL "Generate compile_commands.json" FORCE)
 
@@ -92,6 +93,10 @@ if (ENABLE_TESTS)
   add_subdirectory(tests)
 endif()
 
+if (ENABLE_BENCH)
+  add_subdirectory(bench)
+endif()
+
 
 
 

bench/CMakeLists.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+find_package(OpenCV REQUIRED)
+
+add_executable(reference_bench
+    reference_bench.cpp
+)
+
+target_link_libraries(reference_bench PRIVATE
+    ${OpenCV_LIBS}
+    CLI11::CLI11
+)
+
+set_target_properties(reference_bench PROPERTIES
+    RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
+)

bench/RESULTS.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+# Benchmark Results
+
+- Date: 2026-09-06
+- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-14600KF
+- Image: `bench.jpg` (1092344 bytes)
+- Iterations: 50
+
+Generated locally by `bench/run_bench.py`, not in CI -- see bench/reference_bench.cpp for the naive/OpenCV implementations and bench/pic/ for the picceler programs.
+
+| operation | picceler | naive C++ | OpenCV |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| invert | 18.4 ms | 6.8 ms | 4.9 ms |
+| brightness(+30) | 18.1 ms | 8.0 ms | 5.3 ms |
+| gaussian_blur(r=6) | 1415.7 ms | 1051.5 ms | 12.3 ms |
+| sharpen(3x3) | 93.4 ms | 79.4 ms | 15.4 ms |

bench/pic/bench_brightness.pic

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+def main() -> int64 {
+    image img = load_image("img/bench.jpg")
+
+    for (i = 0 .. 50) {
+        image out = brightness(img, 30)
+        save_image(out, "bench_brightness_out.png")
+    }
+
+    return 0
+}

bench/pic/bench_gaussian_blur.pic

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+def main() -> int64 {
+    image img = load_image("img/bench.jpg")
+
+    for (i = 0 .. 50) {
+        image out = gaussian_blur(img, 6)
+        save_image(out, "bench_gaussian_blur_out.png")
+    }
+
+    return 0
+}

bench/pic/bench_invert.pic

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+def main() -> int64 {
+    image img = load_image("img/bench.jpg")
+
+    for (i = 0 .. 50) {
+        image out = invert(img)
+        save_image(out, "bench_invert_out.png")
+    }
+
+    return 0
+}

bench/pic/bench_sharpen.pic

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+def main() -> int64 {
+    image img = load_image("img/bench.jpg")
+
+    for (i = 0 .. 50) {
+        image out = sharpen(img, 40)
+        save_image(out, "bench_sharpen_out.png")
+    }
+
+    return 0
+}