Fourier domain interpretation of real and pseudo-moiré phenomena

Unified interpretation for the real and pseudo moiré phenomena using the concept of biased and unbiased frequency pairs in the Fourier spectrum is given. Intensity modulations are responsible for pseudo moiré appearance in the image plane rather than average intensity variations dominating real moiré. Detection of pseudo moiré necessitates resolving superimposed structures in the image plane. In the case of the product type superimposition generating both real and pseudo moiré, our interpretation utilizes the Fourier domain information only. The moiré pattern characteristics such as an effective carrier, modulation and bias intensity distributions can be readily predicted. We corroborate them using two-dimensional continuous wavelet transform and fast adaptive bidimensional empirical mode decomposition methods as complementary image processing tools.