Spatial filters are designed to highlight or suppress features in an image based on spatial frequency, such as suppressing 'noise' or highlighting specific image characteristics.

In Origin 8, several spatial filtering routines are available:

• Average
• Clear
• Edge
• Gaussian
• Median
• Noise
• Sharpen
• Unsharp Mask
• User Filter

Gaussian filtering is most suitable for removing Gaussian noise. For salt-and-pepper, or shot noise, median filter works best. Average filter is a simple case of Gaussian filtering. These filters can also be used for blurring images.

Sharpen and Unsharp Mask enhance the edges and details in the image.

Edge detection aids in finding boundaries of the objects in an image.