Halftoning of image sequences

Abstract

We present an algorithm for the halftoning of greyscale image sequences. This facilitates the display of video sequences on black-and-white visual displays (e.g., high-qualityX-terminals) for multimedia applications. The main problem to be overcome when halftoning sequences is the temporal flicker between successive images. The classical problem of halftoning a static greyscale image may be posed as an optimization problem. We present an iterative algorithm for its solution. At the expense of being slower, our algorithm achieves visual results on static images better than those obtained from classic halftoning algorithms. We extend our static halftoning algorithm to image sequence halftoning. Temporal correlation between the halftoned versions of image sequences is guaranteed by using an incremental algorithm transfering information between the images. This results in binary sequences with relatively little high-frequency temporal noise, a feature that facilitates efficient no-loss compression (1∶4) of the results.