Patent ID: 7480074

Claim:
An image forming apparatus for forming pixels by illuminating a pixel formation member with optical energy emitted by a light emitting unit according to image data, the image forming apparatus comprising: a calculation unit for calculating peripheral optical energy received by a pixel of interest on the pixel formation member by determining and adding up the optical energy emitted to form individual pixels two-dimensionally surrounding the pixel of interest but received instead by the pixel of interest; a compensation unit for adjusting the optical energy emitted to form the pixel of interest according to said peripheral optical energy; and an energy emission distribution memory for storing an energy emission distribution representing a distribution of optical energy emitted by the light emitting unit and received at a two-dimensional array of pixel positions; wherein the calculation unit calculates the optical energy emitted to form the individual pixels two-dimensionally surrounding the pixel of interest but received instead by the pixel of interest from the energy emission distribution; and the energy emission distribution is stored as a matrix in the energy emission distribution memory, the matrix having a size determined according to specifications of the image forming device, the matrix excluding an area over which the optical energy received adds up to less than one gray level in a gray scale used by the image forming apparatus; and the matrix has a minimum size such that peripheral optical energy excluded from the matrix corresponds in total to less than one gray level of the pixel of interest.