Also, fundamentally, the best reproduction of a "gaussian-shaped curve" in frequency domain is only possible with very fine frequency resolution, so you need lots of individual points defining a peak. Fine freq resolution in turn depends on rather long sampling durations.
In the real world, pure gaussians are pretty rare little beasties though anyway. Quite often very fine frequency resolution just provides more "landing zones" for the broadband noise, and you still don't get nice well-defined gaussian curves. FYI.
-Kevin P.
CAUTION! New LabVIEW adopters -- it's too late for me, but you *can* save yourself. The new subscription policy for LabVIEW puts NI's hand in your wallet for the rest of your working life. Are you sure you're *that* dedicated to LabVIEW? (Summary of my reasons in this post, part of a voluminous thread of mostly complaints starting here).