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Concept
Aliasing
Summary
In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing is the overlapping of frequency components resulting from a sample rate below the Nyquist frequency. This overlap results in distortion or artifacts when the signal is reconstructed from samples which causes the reconstructed signal to differ from the original continuous signal.
Aliasing that occurs in signals sampled in time, for instance in digital audio or the stroboscopic effect, is referred to as temporal aliasing. Aliasing in spatially sampled signals (e.g., moiré patterns in s) is referred to as spatial aliasing.
Aliasing is generally avoided by applying low-pass filters or anti-aliasing filters (AAF) to the input signal before sampling and when converting a signal from a higher to a lower sampling rate. Suitable reconstruction filtering should then be used when restoring the sampled signal to the continuous domain or converting a signal from a lower to a higher sampling rate. For spatial anti-aliasing, the types of anti-aliasing include fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA), multisample anti-aliasing, and supersampling.
When a digital image is viewed, a reconstruction is performed by a display or printer device, and by the eyes and the brain. If the image data is processed in some way during sampling or reconstruction, the reconstructed image will differ from the original image, and an alias is seen.
An example of spatial aliasing is the moiré pattern observed in a poorly pixelized image of a brick wall. Spatial anti-aliasing techniques avoid such poor pixelizations. Aliasing can be caused either by the sampling stage or the reconstruction stage; these may be distinguished by calling sampling aliasing prealiasing and reconstruction aliasing postaliasing.
Temporal aliasing is a major concern in the sampling of video and audio signals. Music, for instance, may contain high-frequency components that are inaudible to humans. If a piece of music is sampled at 32,000 samples per second (Hz), any frequency components at or above 16,000 Hz (the Nyquist frequency for this sampling rate) will cause aliasing when the music is reproduced by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC).
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