Patent ID: 8576267
Filing Date: 2013-11-05
Classification: G03G,G06K,H04N

Abstract:
1. An optical writing device comprising: a pattern storage unit configured to store therein pieces of dithering information indicating a plurality of dithering patterns whose densities are different, each dithering pattern being made up of a given number of pixels, each piece of dithering information including pieces of identification information associated with the pixels of the corresponding dithering pattern, respectively; a pixel setting information storage unit configured to store therein pieces of pixel setting information in which pieces of colored/colorless information indicating each of the pixels is colored or colorless are associated with the pieces of identification information, respectively, the pieces of colored/colorless information being set based on a resolution of a light source for forming an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive element; a light emission control unit configured to causes the light source to emit light based on pixel information; a reading signal acquiring unit configured to acquire a reading signal resulting from optically reading an image formed by developing the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive element and conveyed; and a dithering pattern selecting unit configured to select and output one of the pieces of dithering information based on the reading signal, wherein in an operation of selecting the dithering pattern, the light emission control unit arranges the same dithering patterns in a way that the dithering patterns form a pattern with a given size, for each of the different dithering patterns stored, and cause the light source to emit light based on pixel information generated by setting the pixels of each of the same dithering patterns to be colored or colorless in accordance with the pixel setting information, to form electrostatic latent images of a plurality of patterns each in the given size and in a different density, the reading signal acquiring unit acquires a reading signal corresponding to the density for each of the patterns in the given size and different densities, and the dithering pattern selecting unit selects and outputs one of the pieces of dithering information corresponding to a reading signal that indicates a density closest to a predetermined reference density among the reading signals acquired from the patterns in the given size and the different densities.