(1) Creating a film or electronic image of any picture or paper form. Imaging is accomplished by scanning or photographing an object and turning it into a matrix of dots (bitmap), the true meaning of which is unknown to the computer, only to the human viewer. Scanned documents containing text can be encoded into computer data with page recognition software (see
OCR). See
computational imaging,
micrographics,
image processing and
document imaging.
(2) The illusion of a live performance in audio playback. Microphone placement during recording, post-recording mixing in the studio and the performance of the speakers when listening all contribute to the quality of the imaging. Geared to the type of venue such as a concert hall or nightclub, surround sound processing in the audio equipment creates or enhances effects that attempt to make imaging more realistic.
Speaker Imaging
From the playback side, imaging quality is derived mostly from the speakers. The stiffness and mass of the speaker cone, along with the materials used to suspend the cone in its frame, are the primary criteria that affect the speaker's capability of reproducing sound accurately, and thus the imaging. See
home theater speakers and
audiophile.