Moiré effect

The issue of the moire effect in sensing and imaging

Moiré effect is a disruptive effect that may impair the quality of the images captured by a digital camera. Sometimes the moiré effect also occurs in television broadcasts. The effect arises when the regular pattern of the camera’s sensor pixels, or the pixels of a screen or display, interferes with a regular pattern on the display surface (such as the texture of a fabric). The overlapping of two regular patterns that are similar but not perfectly aligned leads to the formation of a group of patterns – the so-called moiré effect. This manifests itself as coloured stripes or circles.

What is the moiré effect?

The moiré effect occurs when we perceive the interference of two grids of lines arranged at different angles or of different sizes. This means that it arises from the overlapping of two different patterns of lines or shapes – this results in an undesirable visual effect that cannot be removed.

While the moire effect is less noticeable in analog photographs, it is particularly pronounced in digital photography. This is due to the very nature of the digital camera sensor, which is essentially made up of a grid of pixels.