Geometric calibration of a hyperspectral imaging system.

Every imaging system requires a geometric calibration to yield accurate optical measurements. Geometric calibration typically involves imaging of a known calibration object and finding the parameters of a camera model and a model of optical aberrations. Optical aberrations can vary significantly across the wide spectral ranges of hyperspectral imaging systems, which can lead to inaccurate geometric calibrations if conventional methods were used. We propose a method based on a B-spline transformation field to align the spectral images of the calibration object to the model image of the calibration object. The degree of spatial alignment between the ideal and the spectral images is measured by normalized cross correlation. Geometric calibration was performed on a hyperspectral imaging system based on an acousto-optic tunable filter designed for the near-infrared spectral range (1.0-1.7microm). The proposed method can accurately characterize wavelength dependent optical aberrations and produce transformations for efficient subpixel geometric calibration.