The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 07, 2006
Filed:
Nov. 16, 2000
Joan L. Mitchell, Longmont, CO (US);
James F. Crossland, Boulder, CO (US);
Nenad Rijavec, Longmont, CO (US);
Joan L. Mitchell, Longmont, CO (US);
James F. Crossland, Boulder, CO (US);
Nenad Rijavec, Longmont, CO (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Apparatus and methods for flexible digital halftoning are provided in which novel pattern choices are allowed by not restricting the basic halftone patterns to grow sequentially. Rather, positions in a threshold array allow multiple transitions between on (i.e., printed with toner/ink) and off (not printed) as a function of the input value at the corresponding position. In one embodiment, multiple threshold matrices are employed and the output decision is a vote (e.g., exclusive OR) of the outputs of the individual threshold matrices. In another embodiment, each position contains an arbitrary bit vector to express the output for each input. In yet another embodiment, space efficiency may be achieved by sorting the arbitrary bit vectors into collections of adjacent decisions for a given input value, such as into bytes.