A Dithering Based Technique for Improving Gray Level Reproduction Capability in Dark Areas on Plasma Display Panels

플라즈마 디스플레이의 어두운 영역에서의 계조 표현 향상을 위한 디더링 방법

  • Park, Seung-Ho (Dept.of Electronics Engineering, Inha University) ;
  • Kim, Chun-U (Dept.of Electronics Engineering, Inha University)
  • Published : 2002.05.01

Abstract

Because of the reduced number of displayable gray levels resulting from inverse gamma correction, images on a plasma display panel (PDP) exhibit undesirable false contours in dark areas. An error diffusion method has been applied to remedy this problem. However, it is computationally expensive and requires large memory resources. This paper proposes a computationally efficient dithering based technique to improve the gray level reproduction capability in dark areas. In the proposed method, multiple dithering masks ate utilized in turn to improve the gray level reproduction in dark areas. Also, in order to reduce undesirable regular patterns generated by the dithering method, positions of threshold values within a given dithering mask are changed. Compared to the error diffusion method, the proposed method requires much less computations and memory resources with a comparable gray level reproduction capability.

플라즈마 디스플레이에서는 역감마 보정으로 인한 표현 계조수의 감소 때문에 어두운 영역에서 의사윤곽이 발생하게 된다. 기존에는 이와 같은 문제를 해결하기 위해 주로 오차확산 방법이 사용되었다. 하지만, 오차확산 방법은 계산량이 많고, 많은 메모리 용량을 필요로 한다. 본 논문에서는 적은 계산량으로 어두운 영역에서의 계조 표현 성능을 향상시키기 위한 디더링 방법을 제안한다. 제안하는 방법에서는 표현 가능한 계조수 증가를 위하여 복수개의 디더링 마스크들을 프레임마다 번갈아 적용한다. 또한, 디더링 방법에서 발생하는 규칙적인 패턴을 감소시키기 위해 프레임별로 사용되는 디더링 마스크내의 문턱치의 위치를 변화시키도록 한다. 제안하는 방법은 기존의 오차확산 방법과 비교하여 상대적으로 적은 계산량과 메모리를 사용하면서도 시각적으로 유사한 계조 재현 성능을 나타낸다.

Keywords

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