Tone dependent error diffusion

• Main Authors: LI, PINGSHAN, ALLEBACH, JAN P
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 08.11.2000
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PHYSICS; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

A tone dependent error diffusion halftoning system uses tone dependent thresholds and error weightings that are optimized by minimizing a model based cost function. An upper and lower threshold are used to compare with the modified pixel value. If the modified pixel value is greater than the upper threshold, a dot is printed, if less than the lower threshold, no dot is printed, and if between, a binary bitmap is used to determine whether a dot should be printed. For each midtone threshold level, a halftone image is generated by a direct binary search method and an error diffusion method. The magnitudes of the fast Fourier transforms, of the halftone images are compared using a visual cost function and the thresholds and error weightings are altered to minimize the cost function. For highlight and shadow tone levels, a filtered halftone image from an error diffusion system is compared to the continuous tone image after filtering the image via a human visual system model. Again by minimizing the cost function, the thresholds and error weightings are optimized.