Dot-to-dot error diffusion

Abstract

A dot-to-dot error diffusion algorithm is presented that combines traditional halftoning (clustered-dot ordered dithering) and error diffusion. Error diffusion can create a large number of nonprintable individualpixels. Therefore, it is not suitable forhard-copy printing. On the other hand, traditional halftoning has only limited output gray levels. With the algorithm we proposed, we try to avoid the problems of both techniques, yet retain their merits. In our algorithm, the error diffusion is performed on halftone dots instead of pixels, and the error diffusion is performed only on full dots. To accommodate the dot-to-dot error propagation, a modified but equivalent version of error diffusion is introduced. The success of the algorithm is demonstrated by the experimental results.