Jan P. Allebach

Biography

Jan P. Allebach’s innovative halftone imaging technology for high-quality digital printing can be found in hundreds of millions of inkjet printers. Dr. Allebach’s tone-dependent error diffusion (TDED) algorithm was a major improvement to digital halftone image processing that overcame the poor image quality of early digital printers. His algorithm is a core technology found in Hewlett-Packard products ranging from affordable desktop printers to complex multifunction printing devices. The TDED is an enhancement of Dr. Allebach’s direct binary search (DBS) algorithm. Considered the gold standard for dispersed-dot halftone imaging, the DBS algorithm wasn’t suitable for the needs of desktop printers. Dr. Allebach’s team modified the error diffusion architecture to overcome undesirable texture patterns caused by traditional error diffusion algorithms to create an algorithm that could generate DBS-like images but for real-time systems such as desktop linkjet printers.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Allebach is the Hewlett-Packard Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.