Hyperspectral imaging: the colorimetric high ground

Color is the human sensory perception triggered by a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum commonly called light. Mechanisms for capturing and reproducing these perceptions can trace their origins to four events. First, Newton’s deduction that “white light” was a mixture of rays able to induce the sensation of color in a human. Some 140 years later Young offered a physiological explanation for color perception, photosensitive receptors in the eye, which came to be known as the trichromatic theory. About 55 years later Maxwell applied Young’s theory to photography, demonstrating the three primary process that even now underpins commercial methods of capturing and reproducing color. And finally, In 1931, an international scientific standards organization, the International Illumination Commission (CIE), offered a precise, reproducible system for measuring and specifying color. However, CIE31was never integrated into the generally accepted procedure for reproducing color. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate, via discussion of technical issues and disclosure of a practical image capture device, that the CIE31method and related improvements, collectively described as hyperspectral imaging, can be integrated into the general process of color reproduction. The author maintains hyperspectral imaging is the path to virtually all future color reproduction techniques.