Abstract
Hyperspectral imaging is a widely used technology for industrial and scientific purposes, but the high cost and large size of commercial setups have made them impractical for most basic research. Here, we designed and implemented a fully open source and low-cost hyperspectral scanner based on a commercial spectrometer coupled to custom optical, mechanical and electronic components. We demonstrate our scanner’s utility for natural imaging in both terrestrial and underwater environments. Our design provides sub-nm spectral resolution between 350–950 nm, including the UV part of the light spectrum which has been mostly absent from commercial solutions and previous natural imaging studies. By comparing the full light spectra from natural scenes to the spectral sensitivity of animals, we show how our system can be used to identify subtle variations in chromatic details detectable by different species. In addition, we have created an open access database for hyperspectral datasets collected from natural scenes in the UK and India. Together with comprehensive online build- and use-instructions, our setup provides an inexpensive and customisable solution to gather and share hyperspectral imaging data.
Highlights
Hyperspectral imaging combines spatial and detailed spectral information of a scene to construct images where the full spectrum of light at each pixel is known[1]
To study what chromatic contrasts are available for an animal to see in nature requires measuring the spectral content of its environment and comparing this to the eye’s spectral sensitivity
Most previous work on natural imaging to study animal colour vision used sets of spectrally narrow images generated by iteratively placing different interference filters within the range of 400–1,000 nm[9,10,11,12] in front of a spectrally broad sensor array
Summary
Hyperspectral imaging combines spatial and detailed spectral information of a scene to construct images where the full spectrum of light at each pixel is known[1]. We present a low-cost and open source hyperspectral scanner design and demonstrate its utility for studying animal colour vision in the context of the natural visual world. In 2013 Baden et al.[18] used a hyperspectral scanner based on a spectrometer reaching the UV spectrum of light and an optical fibre controlled by two servo motors With their setup it is possible to build hyperspectral images in a similar way to the design presented here, but the system is bulky and fragile www.nature.com/scientificreports/. Www.nature.com/scientificreports making it inconvenient to enclose in a waterproofed casing In their setup the point of light from the scene is guided with the optic fibre attached to the spectrometer which further complicates the build. Complete build and installation instructions are detailed in the manual on the project GitHub page: https://github.com/BadenLab/ Hyperspectral-scanner
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