Figure C.4-1 shows a canonical model of waveform data acquisition. A patient is the subject of the study. There may be several sensors placed at different locations on or in the patient, and waveforms are measurements of some physical quality (metric) by those sensors (e.g., electrical voltage, pressure, gas concentration, or sound). The sensor is typically connected to an amplifier and filter, and its output is sampled at constant time intervals and digitized. In most cases, several signal channels are acquired synchronously. The measured signal usually originates in the anatomy of the patient, but an important special case is a signal that originates in the equipment, either as a stimulus, such as a cardiac pacing signal, as a therapy, such as a radio frequency signal used for ablation, or as a synchronization signal.