Patent ID: 6594035
Filing Date: 2003-07-15
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
A method of managing halftoning errors for error diffusion halftoning comprising steps of:receiving a halftoning error that is based on a pixel value of a current pixel, said current pixel being one of a plurality of pixels that define an input image; diffusing said halftoning error by distributing portions of said halftoning error to temporary storages; quantizing an intermediate error that is to be assigned to a subsequent pixel of said input image to be processed, said intermediate error containing at least a distributed portion of a halftoning error that is associated with one of processed pixels of said input image, said current pixel being a member of said processed pixels; storing said quantized intermediate error in a buffer; and de-quantizing said quantized intermediate error, said de-quantized intermediate error being a basis for a final error that will be combined with a pixel value of said subsequent pixel, said pixel value of said subsequent pixel being utilized to derive a subsequent halftoning error.