Patent ID: 8254694

Claim:
A method for detecting thin lines in image data, the method comprising: receiving contone image data via an input device, the image data comprising a plurality of pixels; using a processor to process the image data and determine the presence of thin lines, wherein each determined thin line comprises at most four pixels along its width, the processing including: establishing a window comprising a pixel of interest and neighboring pixels; determining a minimum value and a maximum value in a selected subset of pixels in the window; thresholding the pixel of interest and neighboring pixels of the window using thresholds; converting the pixels in the window, after thresholding, into a binary window of image data comprising a plurality of binary pixels, the binary pixels including a number of on and off pixels; determining characteristics associated with the on pixels in each row and column of the binary window; thresholding the characteristics associated with the on pixels and off pixels of the binary window; determining if a thin line exists in the window based on the thresholding of the characteristics associated with the on pixels and off pixels; and classifying the pixel of interest as an edge pixel that is part of a thin line if it is determined that the thin line exists.