Hyperspectral Imaging of Natural Scenes: Calibration and Applications

Hyperspectral imaging is a technique which combines spectral and spatial imaging methods. The technology is used in remote sensing, medicine, agriculture and forensics just to mention a few. Images for non-remote systems are commonly acquired by mounting various electronically tunable filters in front of monochromatic cameras and capturing a range of wavelengths to produce a spectral image cube. This book provides relevant techniques for the calibration and characterization of a focal-plane hyperspectral imaging system. These techniques include system noise characterization, stray-light compensation, flat field correction, image registration, input-output function characterization and calibration verification. This book also applies scene recognition techniques to hyperspectral images using ratio indexing and spectral gradients. This comes from the underlying idea that due to the large number of bands contained in hyperspectral images, more information is available so better recognition results compared to colour images. The book should be especially useful to professionals and students in the field of imaging sciences.