Patent Document ID: 8493626
Application ID: 12491601
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of generating a binarization-use pattern for use in binarization of a multi-value image, the method executed by a binarization-use-pattern generating apparatus and comprising: generating a basic pattern of the binarization-use pattern through calculation; determining a lighting order of pixels forming the basic pattern; and generating, based on the basic pattern, a rectangular pattern that functions as the binarization-use pattern, wherein the generating the basic pattern comprises: specifying an angle of the binarization-use pattern; specifying the number of pixels forming the basic pattern; and generating a basic-pattern-shape through calculation based on the angle specified at the specifying the angle and the number of pixels specified at the specifying the number of pixels, at the generating the basic-pattern-shape, tetragons are generated, each of the tetragons being formed of four points of a point A(c, 1), a point B(a+c, b+1), a point C(0, d+1), and a point D(a, b+d+1) specified with arbitrary parameters a, b, c, and d, where a, b, c, and d are integers, satisfying the number of pixels n=2(ad+bc) specified at the specifying the number of pixels, from among the generated tetragons, a tetragon having an angle closest to the angle of the binarization-use pattern specified at specifying the angle is selected, and two of the selected tetragons are placed adjacently to each other to generate the basic pattern, and at the determining the lighting order, the lighting order is determined so that pixels forming a first tetragon of the tetragons of the basic pattern are lit in order of increasing distance from a specific point of the first tetragon, and the lighting order is determined so that, continuously from the lighting order of the first tetragon, pixels forming a tetragon next to the first tetragon of the tetragons of the basic pattern are lit in order of decreasing distance from the specific point of the next tetragon.