Patent ID: 9716846
Date: 2017-07-25
CPC Classifications: G01J,H04N

Claim:
1. An imaging system comprising: an initial optical subsystem receiving incident light and generating a two dimensional image comprising spatially invariant light propagation defining a substantially spatially invariant angle of incidence at a first predetermined location comprising a two dimensional image plane; a dispersive element disposed at the first predetermined location to receive the two dimensional image at the spatially invariant angle of incidence and to generate wavelength dispersed light; a second optical subsystem receiving the wavelength dispersed light and generating a spatially dispersed spectrum at a second predetermined location where in at least one dimension of a spectral plane, light of a predetermined wavelength is directed to a substantially identical position within the spectral plane; a selective element disposed at the second predetermined location and optically coupled to the dispersive element, the selective element configured to programmably modulate an amplitude of light at one or more locations in the spectral plane to produce spectrally modified light and wherein the selective element manipulates the entire two dimensional image simultaneously; and a detector array receiving the spectrally modified light from the selective element, wherein the spectrally modified light comprises a two dimensional image representation of the incident light in which the spectral content has been modified by the selective element in one or more spectral bands, and wherein such spectral modification is substantially identical for substantially all locations in the two dimensional image representation and wherein the entire two dimensional image representation is collected at once by the detector array.