Method of printing using error diffused shingling masks

1. A method of printing dots in an area on a page using of plurality of printing passes of a printhead over said area, comprising:

processing continuous tone data through a halftoning mechanism to generate halftone image data; and

processing said halftone image data through a plurality of error diffused shingling masks, each error diffused shingling mask of said plurality of error diffused shingling masks being used once on particular pass of said plurality of printing passes in printing said area.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said halftoning mechanism uses an error diffusion halftone algorithm to generate said halftone image data representing an eventual pattern of dots to be placed on said page as a result of a printing process.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein said eventual pattern of dots to be placed on said page generated by said error diffusion halftone algorithm are processed by said plurality of error diffused shingling masks to determine which pass of said plurality of printing passes each dot of said eventual pattern of dots will be deposited on said page.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said plurality of error diffused shingling masks used in processing said halftone image data are generated by a plurality of error diffusion algorithms.

5. A system for printing dots in an area on a page using a plurality of printing passes of a printhead over said area, comprising:

a print engine;

a halftoning mechanism that receives and processes continuous tone data to generate halftone image data; and

an image formatting mechanism communicatively coupled between said halftoning mechanism and said print engine, said image formatting mechanism being configured to receive and process said halftone image data through a plurality of error diffused shingling masks, each error diffused shingling mask of said plurality of error diffused shingling masks being used once on a particular pass of said plurality of printing passes in printing said area with said print engine.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein said halftone mechanism uses an error diffusion halftone algorithm to generate said halftone image data representing an eventual pattern of dots to be placed on said page as a result of a printing process.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein said eventual pattern of dots to be placed on said page generated by said error diffusion halftone algorithm is processed by said plurality of error diffused shingling masks to determine which pass of said plurality of printing passes each dot of said eventual pattern of dots will be deposited on said page.

8. The system of claim 5 , wherein said plurality of error diffused shingling masks used in processing said halftone image data are generated using a plurality of an error diffusion algorithms.

9. A method of generating a set of shingling masks, comprising:

generating a plurality of error diffused patterns of dots populated over a predefined area; and

selecting for each pixel location in said predefined area only one pattern of said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots for populating a respective pixel location in said predefined area, wherein each pattern of said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots corresponds to a particular shingling pass of a plurality of shingling passes.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the act of selecting includes:

comparing said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots to determine each pixel location within said predefined area populated by more than one pattern of said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots; and

for each pixel location within said predefined area populated by more than one pattern:

identifying a subset of two or more patterns attempting to populate a particular pixel position said predefined area; and

selecting from said subset of two or more patterns one pattern for populating said particular pixel position.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the act of selecting from said subset is performed by:

determining for each pattern in said subset of two or more patterns a distance Dx between said particular pixel position in said predefined area and a closest adjacent populated pixel position; and

selecting from said subset of two or more patterns a pattern that has the largest distance Dx as said pattern for populating said particular pixel position.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the act of selecting includes:

comparing said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots to determine each pixel location within said predefined area not populated by any pattern of said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots; and

for each pixel location within said predefined area not populated by any pattern, selecting from said plurality of error diffused pattern of dots one pattern for populating a particular pixel position within said predefined area not populated by any pattern.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the act of selecting from said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots one pattern for populating said particular pixel position is performed by:

determining for each pattern of said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots a distance Dx between said particular pixel position in said predefined area and a closest adjacent populated pixel position, and

selecting from said plurality of error diffused patterns of dots a pattern that has the largest distance Dx as said one pattern for populating said particular pixel position.