Image scaling mechanism

Abstract

A method is disclosed. The method includes receiving an image, upsampling the image, eroding the upsampled image to compensate for dot gain and scaling the eroded image to scale the image to a desired size.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A printing system comprising an image scaling system to receive an image, upsample the image, erode the upsampled image to compensate for dot gain and scale the eroded image to scale the image to a desired size. 
     
     
         2 . The printing system of  claim 1  wherein the image is upsampled using nearest neighbor scaling by a integer factor number (N) times. 
     
     
         3 . The printing system of  claim 2  wherein the nearest neighbor scaling is implemented via an integer scaling to generate N times N pels for each pel in the image. 
     
     
         4 . The printing system of  claim 2  wherein the erosion is single sided to remove one or more pels. 
     
     
         5 . The printing system of  claim 4  wherein one toned pel is removed from a string of toned pels in either or both horizontal and vertical directions. 
     
     
         6 . The printing system of  claim 5  wherein the removal of one pel subtracts 1/N pel from the width and 1/N pel from the length. 
     
     
         7 . The printing system of  claim 2  wherein the erosion is two sided to preserve the image location. 
     
     
         8 . The printing system of  claim 7  wherein half of the total pels are taken from each side of each contiguous toned group of pels. 
     
     
         9 . The printing system of  claim 1  wherein the scaling produces contone data having minimal distortion having gray pels to represent image data at a new resolution. 
     
     
         10 . The printing system of  claim 9  wherein the scaled image is halftoned to preserve information. 
     
     
         11 . The printing system of  claim 1  wherein the image comprises a barcode. 
     
     
         12 . The printing system of  claim 1  wherein the image comprises text. 
     
     
         13 . A printing system comprising:
 an image scaling system to receive an image, upsample the image, erode the upsampled image to compensate for dot gain and scale the eroded image to scale the image to a desired size; and   a printer to apply markings to a print medium based on the image.   
     
     
         14 . The printing system of  claim 13  wherein the image is upsampled using nearest neighbor scaling by a integer factor number (N) times. 
     
     
         15 . The printing system of  claim 14  wherein the nearest neighbor scaling is implemented via an integer scaling to generate N times N pels for each pel in the image. 
     
     
         16 . The printing system of  claim 14  wherein the erosion is single sided to remove one or more pels. 
     
     
         17 . The printing system of  claim 16  wherein one toned pel is removed from a string of toned pels in either or both horizontal and vertical directions. 
     
     
         18 . The printing system of  claim 17  wherein the removal of one pel subtracts 1/N pel from the width and 1/N pel from the length. 
     
     
         19 . The printing system of  claim 14  wherein the erosion is two sided to preserve the image location. 
     
     
         20 . The printing system of  claim 13  wherein the scaling produces contone data having minimal distortion having gray pels to represent image data at a new resolution.