Glossary for Geospatial Science

dropout:  A missing piece of an image, or more generally, of a data stream.  Dropouts can be caused by the improper use or function of a hardware device, by signal interference or disruption, or by other problems.  A dropout in text transmission causes missing letters or words.  A dropout in scanning can cause gaps in the image of a line.  Scanning a fine line at too low a resolution or with too low a binary threshold is likely to cause dropouts in the resulting raster image of the line.