Tamar Kashti

Measuring the modulation transfer function of image capture devices: what do the numbers really mean?

The modulation transfer function (MTF) is a fundamental tool for assessing the performance of imaging systems. It has been applied to a range of capture and output devices, including printers and even the media itself. In this paper, we consider the problem of measuring the MTF of image capture devices. We analyze the factors that limit the MTF of a capture device. Then, we examine three different approaches to this task based, respectively, on a slant-edge target, a sinewave target, and a grill pattern. We review the mathematical relationship between the three different methods, and discuss their comparative advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we present experimental results for MTF measurement with a number of different commercially available image capture devices that are specifically designed for capture of 2D reflection or transmission copy. These include camera-based systems, flat-bed scanners, and a drum scanner.

The lattice-based screen set: a square N-color all-orders Moiré-free screen set

Periodic clustered-dot screens are widely used for electrophotographic printers due to their print stability. However, moir´e is a ubiquitous problem that arises in color printing due to the beating together of the clustered-dot, periodic halftone patterns that are used to represent different colorants. This beating or interference phenomenon introduces spurious low frequency (large period) patterns in the printed output that are very objectionable to the viewer. The traditional solution in the graphic arts and printing industry is to rotate identical square screens to angles that are maximally separated from each other. For example, the classic three-color screen set rotates three identical square screens to the angles 15°, 45°, and 75°, respectively. However, the effectiveness of this approach is limited when printing with more than four colorants, i.e. N-color printing, where N >4. Moreover, accurately achieving the angles that have maximum angular separation requires a very high resolution plate writer, as is used in commercial offset printing. In this paper, we propose a systematic way to design color screen sets for periodic, clustered-dot screens that offers more explicit control of the moir´e properties of the resulting screens when used in color printing. We find a general concept for moir´e-free screen design that is called lattice-based screen design. The basic concept behind our approach is the creation of the screen set on a 2-dimensional lattice in the frequency domain and then picking each fundamental frequency vector of the individual colorant planes in the created spectral lattice according to the desired properties. The halftone geometry of a screen set is the set of angles and frequencies in units of lines per inch (LPI) of each screen plane. The lattice-based screen design offers more flexibility in designing N-color screen sets with different halftone geometries, and all of them are guaranteed to be all-orders moir´e-free. For example, by creating a square lattice in the frequency domain, square N-color moir´e-free screen sets that consist of N rotated square screens can be achieved. The proposed approach maintains the advantage of square clustered-dot screen design and is based on low addressability of digital printing. We also propose several symmetry measures, and use them to compare the proposed 4-color square screen set and the screen sets based on a previous moir´e-free N-color non-orthogonal approach. The proposed screen set is shown to have better symmetry properties.

Electro-photographic model based stochastic clustered-dot halftoning with direct binary search

Most electrophotographic printers use periodic, clustered-dot screening for rendering smooth and stable prints. However, when used for color printing, this approach suffers from the problem of periodic moire´ resulting from interference between the periodic halftones of individual color planes. There has been proposed an approach, called CLU-DBS for stochastic, clustered-dot halftoning and screen design based on direct binary search. We propose a methodology to embed a printer model within this halftoning algorithm to account for dot-gain and dot-loss effects. Without accounting for these effects, the printed image will not have the appearance predicted by the halftoning algorithm. We incorporate a measurement-based stochastic model for dot interactions of an electro-photographic printer within the iterative CLU-DBS binary halftoning algorithm. The stochastic model developed is based on microscopic absorptance and variance measurements. The experimental results show that electrophotography-model based stochastic clustered dot halftoning improves the homogeneity and reduces the graini-ness of printed halftone images.

The Lattice-Based Screen Set: A Square

Periodic clustered-dot screens are widely used for electrophotographic printers due to their print stability. However, moiré is a ubiquitous problem that arises in color printing due to the beating together of the clustered-dot, periodic halftone patterns that are used to represent different colorants. The traditional solution in the graphic arts and printing industry is to rotate identical square screens to angles that are maximally separated from each other. However, the effectiveness of this approach is limited when printing with more than four colorants, i.e., N -color printing, where N > 4 . Moreover, accurately achieving the angles that have maximum angular separation requires a very high-resolution plate writer, as is used in commercial offset printing. Commercially available high-end digital printers cannot achieve this resolution. In this paper, we propose a systematic way to design color screen sets for periodic, clustered-dot screens that offer more explicit control of the moiré properties of the resulting screens when used in color printing. We develop a principled approach for the moiré-free screen design that is called lattice-based screen design. The basic concept behind our approach is the creation of the screen set on a 2D lattice in the frequency domain, and then picking each fundamental frequency vector of the individual colorant planes in the created spectral lattice according to the desired properties. The lattice-based screen design offers more flexibility in designing N -color screen sets with different halftone geometries, and all of them are guaranteed to be all-orders moiré-free. We demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed method by introducing several new screen designs, and a comparison with published screen designs.

N

Printers employing electrophotographic technology typically use clustered-dot screening to avoid potential artifacts caused by unstable dot rendering. Periodic clustered-dot screens are quite smooth, but also suffer from periodic moir´e artifacts due to interference with other color channels. Stochastic, clustered-dot screens provide an alternative solution. In this paper, we introduce a new approach for stochastic, clustered-dot screen design based on Direct Binary Search (DBS). The method differs from the conventional DBS in its use of a modified cost metric which was derived in an earlier work from using different filters in the initialization and update phases of DBS. The objective of the chosen approach is to design screen for improved print smoothness by generating a homogeneous distribution of compact, uniformly-sized clusters. The results include halftone of a screened folded-ramp, compared against a screen designed with a previous method.

-Color All-Orders Moiré-Free Screen Set

In the process of electrophotograpic (EP) printing, the deposition of toner to the printer-addressable pixel is greatly influenced by the neighboring pixels of the digital halftone. To account for these effects, printer models can either be embedded in the halftoning algorithm, or used to predict the printed halftone image at the input to an algorithm that is used to assess print quality. Most recently,1 we developed a series of six new models to accurately account for local neighborhood effects and the influence of a 45 x 45 neighborhood of pixels on the central printer-addressable pixel. We refer to all these models as black-box models, since they are based solely on measuring what is on the printed page, and do not incorporate any information about the marking process itself. In this paper, we will compare black-box models developed with three different capture devices: an Epson Expression 10000XL (Epson America, Inc., Long Beach, CA, USA) flatbed scanner operated at 2400 dpi with an active field of view of 309.88 mm x 436.88 mm, a QEA PIAS-II (QEA, Inc., Billerica, MA, USA) camera with resolution 7663.4 dpi and a field of view of 2.4 mm x 3.2 mm, and Dr. CID, a 1:1 magnification 3.35 micron true resolution Dyson Relay lens-based 3 Mpixel USB CMOS imaging device2 with resolution 7946.8 dpi and a field of view of 4.91 mm 6.55 mm developed at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories { Bristol. Our target printer is an HP Indigo 5000 Digital Press (HP Indigo, Ness Ziona, Israel). In this paper, we will compare the accuracy of the black-box model predictions of print microstructure using models trained from images captured with these three devices.

Stochastic clustered-dot screen design for improved smoothness

Digital halftoning provides a mechanism for rendering continuous-tone images on devices such as printers. With electrophotography, the deposition of toner within the area of a given printer addressable pixel is strongly influenced by the halftone values of the immediately neighboring pixels. To account for these effects, it is necessary to embed a printer model in the halftoning algorithm. In our previous work, we used an efficient strategy to account for the impact of a 5x5 neighborhood of pixels on the central pixel absorptance. Now we examine the potential influence of a much larger neighborhood (45x45) of the digital halftone image on the measured value of a printed pixel at the center of that neighborhood. The experiment shows that the extended model yields a significant improvement in the accuracy of the prediction of the pixel values of the printed and measured halftone image.