Patent ID: 7355757

Claim:
A method for processing rasterized image data made up of a plurality of input pixels, wherein each input pixel has a gray level value within a range of gray level values, and each input pixel is associated with a particular set of coordinates identifying the position of each input pixel in the image, the method comprising: (A) generating a plurality of binary arrays, each array having gray level label, and a plurality of elements, wherein each element in each binary array corresponds to a respective input pixel, each element has one of only two possible binary values, and is associated with a particular set of coordinates that identifies the position of an input pixel in the image; (B) determining the binary value of a particular element associated with a particular set of coordinates in a respective binary array by comparing a gray level value of a corresponding input pixel associated with the particular set of coordinates to the gray level label of the respective binary array; (i) setting the binary value of the particular element to a first value, among the two possible binary values, if the gray level label of the respective binary array is less than the gray level value of the corresponding input pixel associated with the particular set of coordinates; and (ii) setting the binary value of the particular element to a second value, among the two possible binary values, if the gray level label of the respective binary array is greater than the gray level value of the corresponding input pixel associated with the particular set of coordinates; (C) repeat step (B) for each element in the plurality of binary arrays; (D) applying an antialiasing operation to a particular binary array among the plurality of binary arrays to generate a particular set of antialiased values; (E) repeat step (D) for each binary array in the plurality of binary arrays forming a plurality of sets of antialiased values; and (F) combining individual antialiased values from all the plurality of sets antialiased values to determine a new gray level value of an output pixel in an output image.