Halide: First steps -> block-based mean operation http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43455570/halide-how-to-process-image-in-overlapping-blocks

halide.cpp

#include "Halide.h"
#include "Halide/tools/halide_image_io.h"
#include <iostream>

// This code calculates a block based mean on some a-priori known image-dimensions (1 uint8_t channel)
// An example image to process: http://i.imgur.com/Eyo0Xvc.png
// No customized scheduling within this code, but the SO-answer gives some recommendation!

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  Halide::Buffer<uint8_t> input = Halide::Tools::load_image("TestImages/block_example.png");

  // This is a simple example assumes an input of 64x128
  std::cout << "dim 0: " << input.width() << std::endl;
  std::cout << "dim 1: " << input.height() << std::endl;

  // The "outer" (block) and "inner" (pixel) indices that describe a pixel in a tile.
  Halide::Var xo, yo, xi, yi, x, y;

  // The distance between the start of each tile in the input.
  int tile_stride_x = 32;
  int tile_stride_y = 64;
  int tile_size_x = 32;
  int tile_size_y = 64;

  Halide::Func tiled_f;
  tiled_f(xi, yi, xo, yo) = input(xo * tile_stride_x + xi, yo * tile_stride_y + yi);

  Halide::RDom tile_dom(0, tile_size_x, 0, tile_size_y);
  Halide::Func tile_means;
  tile_means(xo, yo) = sum(Halide::cast<uint32_t>(tiled_f(tile_dom.x, tile_dom.y, xo, yo))) / (tile_size_x * tile_size_y);

  Halide::Func output;
  output(xo, yo) = Halide::cast<uint8_t>(tile_means(xo, yo));

  Halide::Buffer<uint8_t> output_(2, 2);
  output.realize(output_);

  Halide::Tools::save_image(output_, "block_based_stuff.png");
}

@dsharletg Amazing. Indeed the buffer should be uint8 before using Halide::Tools::save_image. And the cast-before-output is now working too (i don't know what went wrong before). Everything is fine now! Thanks for all your help! I will add this tiny example to my SO-question as edit based on your answer and mark it as accepted.