66 PI-MAX/PI-MAX2 System Manual Version 5.F
Interline CCD
Figure 22 shows an example of 2 2 binning. Each pixel of the image displayed by the
software represents 4 pixels of the CCD array. Rectangular bins of any size are possible.
Figure 22. 2 × 2 Binning for Interline CCD
Software Binning
Software binning is a software-averaging post-acquisition process that can be performed on
either unbinned or hardware-binned data. This type of binning can improve the S/N ratio
by as much as the square root of the number of scans. Unfortunately, with a high number
of scans (i.e., above 100), camera 1/f noise may reduce the actual S/N ratio to slightly
below this theoretical value. Also, if the light source used is photon flicker (1/f noise)
limited rather than photon shot-noise limited, this theoretical signal improvement cannot
be fully realized. Again, background subtraction from the raw data is necessary.
Software binning is also useful in high light level experiments, where the camera is again
photon shot-noise limited. Summing multiple pixels in software corresponds to collecting
more photons, and results in a better S/N ratio in the measurement.
In the WinX application software, software binning can either be set up to occur
automatically or as a manual post-processing operation. Automatic software binning is
set up by entering Group parameters on the Acquisition|Experiment Setup…|ROI
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