In law the term "fiducial" means "of or pertaining to a fiduciary".
In imaging technology, a fiduciary marker or fiducial is an object used in the field of view of an imaging system which appears in the image produced, for use as a point of reference or a measure.
"Fiducial" is also used for something taken as an origin or zero of reference. For example, the occurrence of a specified event in time may be established by a number—representing, say, hour or date—obtained by counting from a fiducial epoch, such as a meridian passage of the sun or the birth of Christ. A fiducial point also figures in the calculation of astrological ages.
The "fiducial edge" of an alidade is the place on the instrument at which one reads a scale or draws a line.
In airborne geophysical surveys, a "fiducial" is a shared sequential timing reference for geophysical measurements collected during a survey flight.
In low-background physics experiments where a detecting medium exhibits self shielding properties a fiducial volume is defined as an interior volume of the detecting medium that excludes the most external portion of the detection medium where most background events will occur.
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