Application of Matrix Rotating Screening in Halftone Information Hiding Technology

Information hiding technology based on halftone screening becomes increasingly popular in anti-counterfeit printing field because of its low-cost and easy operation. But the problems of unsatisfying information hiding effect and low-safety factor remain to be solved. In this study, a new algorithm of matrix rotating screening on the basis of threshold matrix screening principle is introduced in order to create special shaped dots. The image screened with special shaped dots is then applied to hide and extract information. As expected, dot shape varying from rotating matrix is hard to copy, thus improving the security ability of image. The hiding effect of image screened with special shaped dots gets 0.9740 based on structural similarity (SSIM), while the hiding effect of image screened with traditional round dots gets 0.9655. Therefore, we demonstrate that image screened with special shaped dots created by rotating matrix achieves a better hiding effect compared with traditional method, leading to a more practical and beneficial application in halftone information hiding technology.