Apparatus and method for arbitrary binary resolution conversion

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION The following will be a detailed description of the drawings illustrating the present invention.
In this description, as well as in the drawings, like reference numerals represent devices or circuits or equivalent circuits which perform the same or equivalent functions.
FIG.
6 illustrates the system emulation of the present invention which converts an image having a first resolution to an image having a second resolution.
In this emulation, an image to be printed is inputted into a printer simulation circuit 210 which electronically simulates the printing of the image data.
This electronic simulation enables a more accurate resolution conversion by converting the resolution from a printed image.
In other words, the resolution conversion should take place during the actual scanning of the image, not at the printing routine.
This technique is realized using the electronic simulation process wherein the image is reprinted electronically and scanned electronically at a new resolution.
Thus, the present invention simulates electronically the printing of the image so that the simulated printed image can be scanned at either a higher or lower resolution.
The printer simulation circuit 210 produces a gray signal which is inputted into a low pass filter 220 to produce a bandlimited gray signal.
The band limited gray signal is then fed into a scanner simulation circuit 230 which samples the bandlimited gray signal at the desired resolution to produce a gray image having the second resolution.
The gray image having the second resolution is inputted into a binarization circuit 240 to produce a binary image having a second resolution.
The binary image is then inputted into a printer 250 which produces a document having the image contained thereon with the second resolution and a same output size as the original image.
FIG.
7 illustrates a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.
This scanning of the simulated printed image is carried out by the reconstruction circuit 100