Kvantisointia

Kvantisointia is the Finnish term for the process of quantization—the mapping of a continuous range of values to a finite set of discrete values. The concept is used across physics, engineering, and data processing to describe related ideas.

In physics, kvantisointi refers to the emergence of discrete eigenvalues for certain observables in quantum mechanics. Examples include energy levels of atoms and angular momentum. Quantization explains why many physical quantities come in indivisible units and underpins the transition from classical to quantum behavior, with Planck’s constant setting the scale of discreteness.

In signal processing and communications, kvantisointi is central to analog-to-digital conversion. An analog signal is represented by a finite number of levels, introducing quantization error. Uniform quantization uses evenly spaced levels, while nonuniform approaches adapt to signal statistics. The bit depth determines resolution and dynamic range and influences data rates and noise. Dithering can lessen perceptual artifacts associated with quantization.

In data compression, kvantisointi reduces precision of coefficients or samples to achieve compact representations. In image and video codecs, transform coefficients are quantized, with coarser quantization yielding higher compression but more distortion. The choice of quantization step size and matrices controls the balance between fidelity and size, and is a core aspect of rate–distortion theory.

Vector quantization and product quantization extend the idea to multi-dimensional data, replacing a large set of possible vectors with a smaller codebook to enable efficient storage and fast matching. Kvantisointi thus spans fundamental physics to practical engineering and data science applications.