undistorted

Undistorted describes something free from distortion, deviation, or alteration from its original form. The term is used across fields—from audio and imaging to mathematics and everyday language—to indicate fidelity to the source. What counts as distortion depends on context: in signal processing it is any change to the waveform beyond the intended signal; in imaging, geometric or optical alterations that bend lines or misrepresent scale.

In audio, undistorted sound is free of nonlinearities that add harmonics or cause clipping. Distortion can arise in amplifiers, speakers, or converters when signals exceed a system’s linear range. Metrics such as total harmonic distortion (THD) quantify this effect. Achieving undistorted playback or recording requires proper gain staging, adequate headroom, and high-quality components and calibration.

In photography and filmmaking, undistorted imagery preserves true geometry. Lenses can exhibit barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration; undistorted images are obtained through camera calibration and lens correction, or rectified in post-processing so that straight lines remain straight and proportional relationships are preserved.

In mathematics and related fields, undistorted can describe a substructure that embeds in a larger space without distorting distances, up to a fixed factor. For example, an undistorted subgroup in geometric group theory has word metrics that reflect the ambient metric to within constants.

More broadly, undistorted is used to indicate authentic representation, such as news reports or data, where the presentation has not been altered to mislead.