The influence of SNR on MTF measurement

The Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is a fundamental imaging system design specification and system quality metric often used in remote sensing. The MTF describes the attenuation of sinusoidal waveforms as a function of spatial frequency. Practically, MTF is a metric quantifying the sharpness of the reconstructed image. The Knife-Edge method is becoming widely applied for its advantage of simplified target and accurate computer calculation. Noise in CCD image system is inevitable, thus the SNR becomes a factor influencing the MTF measurement. In this paper, we build relationships between SNR, luminance and MTF. In conclusion, SNR is related with luminance levels linearly. SNR rises with increasing luminance. The higher SNR, the more curves conform to the theoretical MTF.