Fast bitonal to gray scale image scaling

Abstract

A device for re-scaling an image to change the resolution with which discrete pixel values represent it includes a scan-line interface (40) and an alignment circuit (45) that assemble sets of the original pixel values into submatrices and apply them to a convolution engine (46), which computes new pixel values from them. X and Y scaling engines (58 and 60) control the re-scaling without having to generate original-pixel address at the rate at which new pixels are generated. The X scaling engine (58) simply indicates whether an output the currently supplied input data should be used to generate an output intensity value and, if so, whether it should be retained for generation of the subsequent intensity value, too. Similarly, the Y scaling engine (60) indicates whether the next scan line to be received should be used for generation of a scan line of output intensity values and, if so, whether it should be retained for generation of a subsequent scan line of output intensity values. In generating the new pixel values, the convolution engine (46) converts from the binary, black-and-white levels of the original pixels to gray-scale values for the new pixels to reduce the jaggedness that scale changes can cause.