What type of artifact may occur due to improper sampling of a digital image?

Aliasing is an artifact that arises when the sampling rate of a digital image is insufficient to accurately represent the original data. In digital imaging, especially in radiography, proper sampling of the signal is crucial to ensure that the details of the image are captured effectively. When the sampling rate is too low compared to the frequency of the data being processed, high-frequency details may be misrepresented, leading to the appearance of false patterns or artifacts in the image, such as the repeating patterns typically associated with aliasing.

In digital radiography, if the equipment doesn't sample the incoming data at an appropriate rate, these misleading representations can appear as distortions or patterns that were not present in the actual object being imaged. This highlights the importance of ensuring that the imaging system is configured to sample at a rate that can adequately capture the range of frequencies typically present in diagnostic images.