Patent ID: 8237989

Claim:
A system for halftone screening comprising: means adapted to receive image data having a number of image tonal levels representative of a continuous tone image; means adapted for receiving description data corresponding to an identified halftone type corresponding to an associated document rendering device; means adapted for associating each image tonal level of received image data in an m row by n column planar array with a corresponding number of halftone tonal levels associated with a selected linearization curve corresponding to a screen frequency of the associated document rendering device, wherein m and n are each integers greater than 2; a memory including a two dimensional look up table (LUT), the LUT including a halftone cell value corresponding to each of the number of halftone tonal levels defined in a first dimension of the LUT, wherein each halftone cell value includes data representative of a plurality of alternative halftone cell arrangements, each having a relatively unique cluster shape defined by a random dot-growth pattern, for each tonal level defined in a second dimension, wherein each plurality of alternative halftone cell arrangements corresponds to an element of the LUT in the first dimension, and wherein each available halftone level associated with an image rendering operation is pre-stored in the LUT; means adapted for receiving electronic image data comprised of a plurality of dot values; means for communicating each of a plurality of dot values corresponding to the LUT; means adapted for selecting a halftone level from the LUT for each dot value; means adapted for receiving a plurality of random numbers defined within a range of a number of storage locations in the second dimension; and means adapted for randomly selecting a halftone cell arrangement from the plurality of corresponding cell values for each halftone tonal level associated with each dot value for each tonal value within a row and for each tonal value within a column in accordance with iterative application of the random numbers to address the second dimension of the LUT so as to select a single entry therefrom, whereby a halftone output is generated therefrom.