Smear (optics)

In optics, smear is used to refer to motion that has low temporal frequency relative to the integration/exposure time. This typically results from a relative rate of the image with respect to the detector (e.g., caused by movement in the scene). Smear is typically differentiated from jitter, which has a higher frequency relative to the integration time. Whereas smear refers to a relatively constant rate during the integration/exposure time, jitter refers to a relatively sinusoidal motion during the integration/exposure time. The equation for the optical modulation transfer function associated with smear is the standard sinc function associated with an extended sample M T F s m e a r ( u ) = sin ⁡ ( π α u ) π α u {\displaystyle \mathrm {MTF} _{\mathrm {smear} }(u)={\frac {\sin(\pi \alpha u)}{\pi \alpha u}}} where u is the spatial frequency and α {\displaystyle \alpha } is the amplitude of the smear in pixels.