sample (signal)

In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous signal to a discrete signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave (a continuous-time signal) to a sequence of samples (a discrete-time signal).A sample refers to a value or set of values at a point in time and/or space.A sampler is a subsystem or operator that extracts samples from continuous signal. A theoretical ideal sampler multiplies a continuous signal with a Dirac comb. This multiplication "picks out" values but the result is still continuous-valued. If this signal is then discretized (i.e., converted into a sequence) and quantized along all dimensions it becomes a discrete signal.
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