And we disagree with you.
Pixel anti aliasing would serve no purpose except eye candy and would yield visually much higher displayed noise (thick trace).
Let's say that you want to show a 1.3V value on the display at t = 0, the trigger location is at the center, and you have the display set for 1V/div with a 0V vertical offset, the vertical resolution of your display is 480 pixels, and it shows 10 divisions vertically. This gives you 48 pixels per division. 1.3V up from center would be 62.4 pixels up from center. How will you most accurately represent that? With a single pixel at 62 pixels up?
No. I argue that the most accurate representation of that value is with two vertical pixels, one at 62 and one at 63, where the pixel intensity of the one at 63 is 66% that of the one at 62 (62.4 means that 60% of the value is at 62 and 40% of it is at 63).
Also, when display is running, you get exactly that pixel anti aliasing effect, by virtue of display intensity gradation in persistence. Only stopped it shows only last (single) capture that is single pixel wide.
Right. But why is it a single pixel wide (or high) when the display is a discrete grid that, except under very specific circumstances, does
not map 1:1 onto the values it's being asked to display? The very problem here is that the display is an inexact representation of the values it's being asked to display, precisely because of the scaling operations that have to take place prior to display. The use of multiple pixels at different intensity makes it possible to more accurately represent recorded values.
Of course, complicating this is the fact that the values themselves are the result of conversion from analog to digital, so that would have to factor into this to the degree possible.
And then there's the fact that the conversion itself is limited in resolution and, thus, carries with it uncertainty. Wouldn't it be
most accurate to represent that uncertainty in the display as well?
Put another way, it is, generally, misleading in at least a couple of ways to represent the recorded value as a single pixel in the display, no?
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If your argument is that the nature of displaying a single capture is such that you don't need to go to the trouble of antialiasing, then I can agree with that. You have cursors at your disposal if you want to see the actual value at any given point. But that is a very different argument from the one that says that "antialiasing"
cannot serve a useful purpose. Done right, it can.