Patent ID: 7092101

Claim:
A method for static multimode spectroscopy, the method comprising: (a) simultaneously receiving spectral energy emanating from a plurality of different spatial points of a diffuse source; (b) applying different multi-peak filter functions to the spectral energy emanating from the different points using an optical component to produce a multi-channel spectral measurement for each point, wherein the multi-channel spectral measurement is converted to an electrical signal by an element of a detector array and wherein the optical component is located between the diffuse source and the detector array; and (c) combining the multi-channel spectral measurements for the different points to estimate a property of the diffuse source, wherein combining the multi-channel spectral measurements to estimate a property of the source includes combining the multi-channel spectral measurements to estimate an average spectrum of the source and wherein combining the multi-channel spectral measurements to estimate an average spectrum of the source includes inverting the filter functions and integrating over an area of the source.