A system and method for tetrahedral interpolation computations using data-level parallelism that takes advantage of data-level parallelism in media processors. If the tetrahedron points in a 3D lookup table are packed together in a memory, the interpolation computation can be implemented without extra instructions to unpack them. An algebraic manipulation of the interpolation equation allows computing the difference on the fraction coefficients instead of the tetrahedron node values. Not only will this technique preserve the full precision without over or underflow, but the packed data from the 3D lookup can be used directly, thereby allowing a faster implementation of the color space transformation overall and implementing as part of a direct-copy image path on a media processor. Such a system and method allows the implementation of the direct copy pipeline to function at the required performance rate as requested by a customer specification while obtaining the required product design speed.