artifact

View more Technology videos

'a product of human art or workmanship', is the more common spelling in British English; in American English artifact, corresponding to pronunciation rather than etymology (Latin arte factum, 'made by [human] art'), is dominant.

Previous:	arouse, around, round, aroma
Next:	artiste, as, as bad. or worse than… / as good or better than…

(1) Any element in a software development project. It includes documentation, test plans, images, data files and executable modules.

(2) A distortion in an image or sound caused by a limitation or malfunction in the hardware or software. Artifacts may or may not be easily detectable. Under intense inspection, one might find artifacts all the time, but a few pixels out of balance or a few milliseconds of abnormal sound often go undetected.

Analog Artifacts

In films and film-based videotape, artifacts such as blotches, scratches and flicker are commonly found, especially in older movies. Imperfections in the camera lenses and CCDs, and the silver-grain film itself, can generate "noise," which appears as tiny background specks, making the image softer. The electronic recording of analog videotapes can introduce noise as well. See noise.

Digital Artifacts

Artifacts are a natural byproduct of digital compression methods such as JPEG and MPEG, which permanently discard pixels. The greater the compression used, the more artifacts are likely, and fast motion sequences are a major contributor. As TV screens become larger, the distortions are more noticeable. In digital cameras, artifacts may arise when performing digital zoom. When analog material is converted to digital, tiny discrepancies (quantization errors) may result. See blocking artifacts, mosquito noise, feathering and quantization error.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your PC, iPhone or Android.

Ballet in four parts with choreography, scenery, and lighting by Forsythe, music by Eva Crossman-Hecht (pts. 1 and 4), Bach (pt. 2), and Forsythe (pt. 3). Premiered 5 Dec. 1984 at Frankfurt Opera House, by Frankfurt Ballet. Forsythe's third full-length work is essentially a pure dance work for a chorus of 36, two principal couples, and one lead woman, but two actors also move through the work declaiming interrogatory texts on the meaning of action, perception, and memory. At times the choreography deliberately courts chaos, at certain points Forsythe subverts theatrical convention, e.g. by having the curtain rise and fall at seemingly arbitrary points in the performance. The overall effect, however, is of a large jigsaw puzzle of different theatrical elements falling into place. It is danced by Dutch National Ballet and, in a shortened version, by Scottish Ballet.

(artifact) [Ge]

Any object which has been modified, fashioned, or manufactured according to a set of humanly imposed attributes, including tools, weapons, ornaments, utensils, houses, buildings, etc. Artefacts are the basic components of material culture.

In the microscopic preparation of tissues, a structure that is not present in the natural state, but which appears during preparation or examination of the material.

IN BRIEF: n. - A man-made object taken as a whole.

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

A structure or appearance that is not natural, but is due to manipulation (man-made).

• dermatohistopathological a. — may be due to sampling errors (selection, preparation or technique) or processing of specimens.
• radiological a. — defects in the x-ray film image due to faults in the cassette (screen artifact) or in the film (film artifact).
• static a. — a mark on x-ray film caused by discharge of static electricity.
• ultrasound a. — irregularities produced in the image display. See acoustic shadowing, acoustic enhancement, comet-tail, reverberation.

(är′təfakt)
n

A blemish or image in the radiograph that is not present in the roentgen image of the object.

For a list of words related to artifact, see:

• Practice, Techniques, Artifacts, and Tools - artifact: object made or used by human beings, esp. one found at archaeological excavation, providing evidence of an earlier culture’s existence

---

See words rhyming with "artifactual."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Artefact.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - kunstgenstand, stykke kunst

Nederlands (Dutch)
kunstproduct, primitieve kunst, artefact

Français (French)
n. - objet, artefact, objet (fabriqué)

Deutsch (German)
n. - Artefakt, (antiker vom Menschen geformter Gegenstand)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - τεχνούργημα, (βιολ.) τεχνητό προϊόν

Italiano (Italian)
manufatto

Português (Portuguese)
n. - artefato (m), produto (m) manufaturado, produto (m) artificial

Русский (Russian)
артефакт

Español (Spanish)
n. - artefacto

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - konstprodukt

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
人工制品, 矫作物, 加工品, 艺术品

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 人工製品, 矯作物, 加工品, 藝術品

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 인공물

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 人工品, 人工遺物

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) انتاج اصطناعي, من صنع الإنسان أو انتاج براعته‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮כלי קדום שנוצר ע"י אומן, חפץ שימושי, מכשיר, כלי שבייצורו שולבו אמנות ואומנות, מוצר ביולוגי שהוכן למטרת מחקר‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.