An experimental approach to measuring DSNU .

The method is described in the paper by Farrell, Feng and Kavusi, 2006, SPIE.

We simulate a large number of short exposure durations to a black scene. We average across the multiple images to eliminate the (presumably unbiased) read noise. We estimate the DSNU as the standard deviation across the pixels.

Make a dark scene, oi and sensor

scene = sceneCreate('uniform ee');
darkScene = sceneAdjustLuminance(scene,0.1);

oi = oiCreate('default',[],[],0);

% The scene must always be larger than the sensor field of view.
sensor = sensorCreate;
sensor = sensorSet(sensor,'size',[196 196]);
darkScene = sceneSet(darkScene,'fov',sensorGet(sensor,'fov')*1.5);

% Compute the dark optical image
darkOI = oiCompute(oi,darkScene);

Set sensor parameters

dsnuLevel = 0.05;       % Std. dev. of offset in volts
prnuLevel = 0.1;        % Std. dev of gain, around 1, as a percentage
readNoise = 0.001;      % Read noise in volts

% Set a brief exposure time for DSNU estimation.  Because of the short
% exposure, the PRNU level is irrelevant.  The read noise can matter.  If
% it is very large, you must average over more trials.
expTime = 0.001;   % Seconds

sensor = sensorSet(sensor,'DSNU level',dsnuLevel);
sensor = sensorSet(sensor,'PRNU level',prnuLevel);
sensor = sensorSet(sensor,'Exposure Time',expTime);
sensor = sensorSet(sensor,'pixel read noise volts', readNoise);

% How many color filters?  Normally 3 and we use the 2nd one in a Bayer.
% But sometimes we might run this script with a monochrome.
nFilters = sensorGet(sensor,'nfilters');

Acquire multiple short exposures of the dark image

clear volts

% We take the image multiple times so we can average out the read noise
nRepeats = 25;

nSamp = prod(sensorGet(sensor,'size'))/2;
volts = zeros(nSamp,nRepeats);

wBar = waitbar(0,'Acquiring images');
showBar = false;
for ii=1:nRepeats
    waitbar(ii/nRepeats,wBar);
    sensor = sensorCompute(sensor,darkOI,showBar);
    if nFilters == 3
        % Get Green channel
        volts(:,ii) = sensorGet(sensor,'volts',2);
    elseif nFilters == 1
        % Get the one channel that is there
        tmp = sensorGet(sensor,'volts');
        volts(:,ii) = tmp(:);
    end
end
close(wBar);
% ieAddObject(sensor); sensorImageWindow;

Estimate the standard deviation across the sensor

% Notice that the mean offset values for all the pixels are positive (not
% zero) because the voltage is forced to be greater than zero at every
% pixel. This also reduces the standard deviation and thus the DSNU
% estimate, below the true DSNU.
vcNewGraphWin;
histogram(volts(:),100);

% So, get rid of all the very very small, basically zero, voltages
v2 = volts(volts > 1e-6);
v2 = [-1*v2(:); v2(:)];
fprintf('\n------------\n')
fprintf('Estimated standard deviation %.3f vs. simulated DSNU %.3f\n',std(v2(:)),dsnuLevel);
fprintf('------------\n')

------------
Estimated standard deviation 0.050 vs. simulated DSNU 0.050
------------

But note that if we simply average across the repeated measures