Locations of the origins of the photons are acquired from a scanned sample with reference to a scan frame. The location on the sample from which a photon was emitted is inferred from the location of the scan as commanded by a scan drive signal, a feedback signal related to the position of the scan device, or alternatively by the point in time during a scan at which the photon is detected. A position function, e.g., photon probability density, is associated with a photon position. Summing or other processing of photon probability density functions can require fewer photons to converge to an ideal density distribution associated with an image feature than are required using conventional pixel binning. Stored data can be mapped into pixels or voxels of a display or otherwise processed. Original data remains available in the digital storage for post-hoc analysis. Imprecision introduced by the display process need not adversely affect the precision of the collected data.