Curve Smoothing (100 Things #90)

Curve smoothing in SoundCheck allows for non-destructive processing of data, resulting in smooth and easy to visually understand curves. Curve smoothing can lessen the effects of reflections in the test space, reduce noise, or make curves less jagged for publishing data. The smoothing post processing step in SoundCheck features an array of different, to facilitate different levels of the smoothing process, including various smoothing widths and windowing options.

Curve Smoothing

Learn more about SoundCheck post processing options

SoundCheck has a full suite of post processing capabilities including curve smoothing, resampling, resolution, curve arithmetic, and more.  Read more details in our SoundCheck features and applications section.

Each sequence uses a stimulus configured to the device under test, and recommended hardware.

Video Script:

Curve smoothing, as its name suggests, is a useful post-processing option that turns your jagged lines into smooth curves. It  may be applied to a curve for a number of reasons – to reduce the appearance of noise in the signal, to minimize reflections and other artifacts from the measurement environment, or simply to make a curve look better for presentation in sales and marketing literature. When smoothing is applied, the points of the curve are modified so that individual points that are higher than the immediately adjacent points are reduced, and points that are lower than the adjacent points are increased.

SoundCheck uses sliding-average smoothing also known as “boxcar” averaging where each point in the curve is replaced by the average of n adjacent points where n is a positive integer known as the smoothing width.  SoundCheck supports standard 1/n octave smoothing widths from one octave to 1/24th octave as well as user defined log and linear values.  In addition to a default rectangular window, a Hanning window may also be applied during the smoothing function. Smoothing is symmetrical at the midpoints of the curve but tapers to zero at the curve’s end-points.  If the curve has uneven or non-standard spacing in the frequency domain, interpolation is used.

In addition to the standard Smoothing post-processing step, the smoothing function is also available in the Resolution post-processing step. This is useful when the final curve resolution is higher than or “not a mathematical factor” of the original resolution.

This feature’s been available in Soundcheck since it was launched in 1995. If you haven’t tried it yet, check it out!