Bandless halftone design for multiple beam printers employing non-orthogonal halftones

• Main Authors: LI HONG, STANICH MIKEL J, WU CHAI W, THOMPSON GERHARD R
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 01.02.2007
• Subjects: ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION

A multiple beam printer system having N laser beams receives print job information from a print host. A rendering application uses a threshold array to generate halftone image data from the print job. The threshold array is defined based on a spot function. The defined screen is non-orthogonal and includes Y pels in a direction that is perpendicular to a scanning direction of the laser beams where Y is an integer multiple of N. A distance between screen dots in pels is preferably equal to an integer multiple of N. The screen dot may be defined by a supercell encompassing two screen dots and having an odd number of pels in a direction that is parallel to the scanning direction. The spot function may include a snap feature that snaps a screen dot to the nearest printer grid pel. The spot function may include scaling to compensate for the distortion of the non-orthogonal screen dot.