The Agilent 816x VXIplug&play Instrument Driver Lambda Scan Applications
236 Agilent 8163A/B, 8164A/B & 8166A/B Mainframes, Fifth Edition
Equally Spaced Datapoints
A linear interpolation is performed on all wavelength and power data for 
the Lambda Scan Application and is optional for the Multi Frame Lambda 
Scan Application. 
The advantage of spacing all measurements equally is that presenting 
results through use of a spreadsheet is greatly simplified. The operation 
returns one wavelength array and a power array for each power meter 
channel.
The disadvantage of using equally spaced datapoints is that the linear 
interpolation is analogous to the use of a low pass filter. Figure 18  shows 
the original curve as measured directly by a Power Meter and the 
interpolated curve. 
Interpolation will always tend to produce a smoother curve by rounding off 
any peaks in the curve.
Figure 18 Equally Spaced Datapoints
Original
Curve
Interpolated
Curve