Multi-Level Halftoning by IGS Quantization

Improved gray-scale (IGS) quantization is a known method for re-quantizing digital gray-scale images for data compression while producing halftones by adding a level of randomness to improve visual quality of the resultant images. In this paper, first, analyzing the IGS quantizing operations reveals the capability of conserving a DC signal level of a source image through the quantization. Then, a complete procedure for producing a multi-level halftone image by IGS quantization that can achieve the DC conservation is presented. Also, the procedure uses the scanning of source pixels in an order such that geometric patterns can be prevented from occurring in the resulting halftone image. Next, the performance of the multi-level IGS halftoning is evaluated by experiments conducted on 8-bit gray-scale test images in comparison with the halftoning by error diffusion. The experimental result demonstrates that a signal level to be quantized in the IGS halftoning varies more randomly than that in the error diffusion halftoning, but not entirely randomly. Also, visual quality of the resulting halftone images was measured by subjective evaluations of viewers. The result indicates that for 3 or more-bit, in other words, 8 or more-level halftones, the IGS halftoning achieves image quality comparable to that by the error diffusion.