Method and apparatus for spatial and temporal dithering

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory storing software instructions, wherein when executed by the processor, the software instructions cause the apparatus to perform a method comprising:
• determining a dither addend for a color component of a pixel based on a frame number of a frame comprising the pixel by determining a filter value as the frame number modulo a number of dither addend formulas available for determining dither addends, and determining the dither addend based on a dither addend formula of the dither addend formulas selected using the filter value;
• adding the dither addend to the color component;
• and
• rounding the color component to reduce a size of the color component;
• and
• wherein when the number of dither addend formulas is one, the dither addend is a binary value determined by adding a least significant bit of a vertical display position of the pixel to a one-bit-left-shifted result of an XOR function on a least significant bit of a horizontal display position of the pixel and the least significant bit of the vertical position of the pixel.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory operatively connected to the processor;
• and
• a dithering device operatively coupled to the processor and the memory, wherein the dithering device is operable to reduce a size of each pixel in a frame by:
• determining a dither addend for the color components of the pixel based on a frame number of the frame by determining a filter value as the frame number modulo a number of dither addend formulas available for determining dither addends and determining the dither addend based on a dither addend formula of the dither addend formulas selected using the filter value;
• adding the dither addend to each color component of the pixel;
• truncating each color component after adding the dither addend;
• and
• generating the pixel using the truncated color;
• and
• wherein when the number of dither addend formulas is two, if the frame number is an even number, the dither addend is a binary value determined based on a first dither addend formula of the dither addend formulas, and if the frame number is an odd number, the dither addend is a binary value determined based on a second dither addend formula of the dither addend formulas.