Human perception of halftoned images

ABSTRACT

An empirical study of human perception of halftoned images was conducted to determine which of five different halftoning algorithms generated the best images. The subjects viewed each of the 20 stimuli (halftoned images) at two distances, and although all images were more preferred at the far distance, the rating of the pictures was dependent upon the algorithm used in generation. Images containing a high level of detail were rated highest when halftoned by the neural network and the simulated annealing algorithms of [4], whereas pictures that had little detail and many smooth surfaces were rated highest under the Floyd-Steinberg model [3].

REFERENCES

• 1: Bayer, B. E. An optimum method for two level rendition of continuous-tone pictures. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communication (1973). IEEE, New York, 26-11-26-15.
• 2: Cannon, M. W. Perceived contrast in the fovea and periphery. In J. Opt. Soc. Am. 2(10), 1985, pp. 1760--1768.
• 3: Floyd. R. and Steinberg, L. An adaptive algorithm for spatial grey scale. In Proceeding of SID 17 (1976), 75--77.
• 4: Robert Geist , Robert Reynolds , Darrell Suggs, A Markovian framework for digital halftoning, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.12 n.2, p.136-159, April 1993 [doi>10.1145/151280.151281]
• 5: Donald E. Knuth, Digital halftones by dot diffusion, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.6 n.4, p.245-273, Oct. 1987 [doi>10.1145/35039.35040]
• 6: Sekular, R. and Blake, R. Perception. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1990.
• 7: Robert Ulichney, Digital halftoning, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1987