Patent ID: 8587783

Claim:
A parameter generation device configured to generate a spectral estimation parameter, which is used to estimate a spectrum of spectral reflectivity of a subject, from a multiband image of the subject taken in a plurality of wavelength bands set by driving a wavelength tunable filter and output from a multiband camera, the parameter generation device comprising: a default value setting module configured to set default values to band specification data used to specify the plurality of wavelength bands; a spectral measurement device configured to measure a spectral distribution with respect to each of a plurality of color charts; a camera output computing module configured to compute a camera output signal representing a multiband image taken by and output from the multiband camera with respect to each of the color charts, based on spectral sensitivity of the multiband camera in the plurality of wavelength bands specified by the band specification data and spectral feature of light from the each color chart; a parameter candidate value computing module configured to compute a candidate value of the spectral estimation parameter, based on the spectral distribution of the each color chart measured by the spectral measurement device and the camera output signal computed by the camera output computing module; an evaluation function controller configured to successively vary the band specification data from the default values to make an evaluation function approach a target value and determine a spectral estimation parameter corresponding to the band specification data when the evaluation function reaches the target value, wherein the evaluation function is defined to correlate the spectral distribution of the each color chart measured by the spectral measurement device to a spectral estimation value computed from the candidate value of the spectral estimation parameter and the camera output signal; and a storage module configured to store the spectral estimation parameter determined by the evaluation function controller and the band specification data when the evaluation function reaches the target value.