Patent ID: 6920244

Claim:
A method for spectral imaging, the method comprising: capturing high spectral resolution data of at least a first portion of a first scene using a first plurality of channels; determining a first set of channels from a second plurality of channels which can reconstruct spectra of the first portion of the first scene to satisfy a first error criterion when compared with the captured high spectral resolution data, wherein the first set of channels from the second plurality of channels comprises a smallest number of the plurality of channels which can be used to reconstruct spectra of the first portion of the first scene to satisfy a first error criterion when compared with the captured high spectral resolution data, wherein the determining further comprises performing an iterative optimization to determine a first set of channels from a second plurality of channels which can reconstruct spectra of the first portion of the first scene to satisfy a first error criterion when compared with the captured high spectral resolution data; and capturing pixel data of at least a second portion of at least the first scene using the first set of channels.