Recovering spectral data from natural scenes with an RGB digital camera and colored filters

Many spectral‐recovery methods using RGB digital cameras assume the underlying smoothness of illuminant and reflectance spectra, and apply low‐dimensional linear models. The aim of the present work was to test whether a direct‐mapping method could be used instead of a linear‐models approach to recover spectral radiances and reflectances from natural scenes with an RGB digital camera and colored filters. In computer simulations, a conventional RGB digital camera with up to three colored filters was used to image scenes drawn from a hyperspectral image database. Three measures were used to evaluate recovery with the direct‐mapping method: goodness‐of‐fit, root‐mean‐square error, and a color‐difference metric. It was found that with two and three filters both spectral radiances and reflectances could be recovered sufficiently accurately for many practical applications. With little increase in computational complexity, an RGB camera and a few colored filters can provide significantly better recovery of natural scenes than an RGB camera alone. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 352–360, 2007     

Rate of swelling of sodium polyacrylate

The kinetics of the swelling of sodium polyacrylate (NaPA), a hydrophilic polymer, was studied gravimetrically, by microscopic observation, and calorimetrically. The swelling process followed first-order kinetics and the rate constant was of the order of 10^?2 s^?1. The gravimetric method, however, was not useful for kinetic studies. The rate constant was depressed by the addition of sodium chloride. The activation energy of the swelling was 46.0 ± 6.2 (kJ mol^?1) and decreased with the increase in sodium chloride concentration. In acid solution, the activation energy was almost the same as that in water. The heat of the swelling was 196 ± 17 J g^?1 and did not vary with the addition of sodium chloride. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Swelling of hydrophilic polymers. III

The total volume change included gel and surrounded water with the swelling of five types of speherical cross-linked dextran (Sephadex) that are either nonionic (G) or possess one of four different ionic groups in the same molecular skeleton: CM: sodium carboxymethyl, SP: sodium sulphopropyl, DEAE: diethylaminoethyl chloride, and QAE: diethyl-(2-hydroxypropyl) aminoethyl chloride. All have been studied by dilatometry. The total volume decreased with the swelling of all Sephadexes. The maximum changes of total volume with the swelling in water were all negatives of CM, G, SP, (DEAE, QAE), which decrease in that order. These values did not depend on the concentration of sodium chloride and were closely related to the maximum heats of swelling. Total volume changes occurred by the dissociation of the ionic group of dextran derivatives that subtracted the total volume change due to hydration of Sephadex skeleton from the total volume change: ?21.6 ± 3.1 μL mmol^?1 for CM, ?2.8 ± 8.0 μL mmol^?1 for SP, +13.2 ± 4.4 μL mmol^?1 for DEAE, and +15.4 ± 4.6 μL mmol^?1 for QAE. These values are assumed to be reflected in the quantities of ions-water interaction of Sephadexes. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Swelling of hydrophilic polymers. IV

The swelling of five types of spherical crosslinked dextrans (Sephadex) that are either nonionic (G) or ionic [carboxymethyl (CM), sulphopropyl (SP), diethylaminoethyl (DEAE), and diethyl-(2-hydroxypropyl)aminoethyl (QAE)] in the same skeleton has been studied in water at different dissolved oxygen concentrations by microscopic observation and by dilatometry. The maximum specific volume, V_max/V₀ obtained by microscopic observation increased with the lowered dissolved oxygen concentration for each Sephadex. The change of the maximum specific volume was closely related to the changes of the dissolved oxygen concentrations. The maximum changes of the total volume took the larger negative values at the lower dissolved oxygen concentration. The effect of the difference in the dissolved oxygen on the change of the total volume with swelling was closely related to the viscosity B coefficient of the Jones-Dole equation. From these results, we conclude that the structure of water on the inside of the gel differs from that on the outside of the gel. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Frequency of metamerism in natural scenes

Estimates of the frequency of metameric surfaces, which appear the same to the eye under one illuminant but different under another, were obtained from 50 hyperspectral images of natural scenes. The degree of metamerism was specified with respect to a color-difference measure after allowing for full chromatic adaptation. The relative frequency of metameric pairs of surfaces, expressed as a proportion of all pairs of surfaces in a scene, was very low. Depending on the criterion degree of metamerism, it ranged from about 10(-6) to 10(-4) for the largest illuminant change tested, which was from a daylight of correlated color temperature 25,000 K to one of 4000 K. But, given pairs of surfaces that were indistinguishable under one of these illuminants, the conditional relative frequency of metamerism was much higher, from about 10(-2) to 10(-1), sufficiently large to affect visual inferences about material identity.     

Psychophysical estimates of the number of spectral-reflectance basis functions needed to reproduce natural scenes

Theoretical analyses of spectral reflectances of natural surfaces suggest that their perceived colors can be well reproduced by approximations comprising combinations of three or four spectral basis functions. The aim of the present work was to assess psychophysically the number of basis functions necessary to reproduce entire natural outdoor scenes. Hyperspectral images of 20 such scenes were each subjected to a principal component analysis and then reproduced with a variable number of basis functions. The quality of the color approximation under daylight illumination was quantified theoretically in CIELAB space and psychophysically by spatial and temporal two-alternative forced-choice measurements in which the original and the approximated images were compared on a calibrated color monitor. Although five basis functions produced on average unit error in CIELAB space, original images were visually indistinguishable from their approximations only if there were at least eight basis functions. The combination of the spectral diversity of the natural world and the observed levels of color discrimination suggest that estimates of the minimum number of basis functions necessary to reproduce natural scenes may need to be revised upward.