A basic premise of forming a halftone image pattern on a two-dimensional substrate receiver in a traditional printing process is that there exists an identical spatial mapping relationship between the original image and its reproduced counterpart. As the printing technology being adopted to become a manufacturing process on flexible substrates as well as three-dimensional objects, this inherent property is no longer valid. Furthermore, similar to all manufacturing processes with mass customization capabilities, the natural evolution for the existing digital printing technology is to become an autonomous process with minimal operator interference. Therefore, a new paradigm of a general halftoning algorithm is proposed where the final image formation is controlled by the local geometry, the intended exposure and instantaneous feedback compensation signals.