What's a hyperspectral camera?

A hyperspectral camera is a camera, similar to a multispectral camera, that sees light bands up to Near InfraRed (NIR) as opposed to a normal RGB camera.

An RGB camera sees only Red, Green and Blue.

A hyperspectral camera sees the red, green and blue, as well as 125 light bands in between – ranging from ultra-violet to Near InfraRed (NIR).

Why is it important to see such a big range of the color spectrum? It is important because there is a lot of information hidden in it.

How can you use this information?

Using this information will allow you to identify different materials or substances, and extract information from vegetation. For example, you could see where the vegetation is lacking water or oxygen.

What is a hyperspectral camera used for?

Currently, it is most commonly used in laboratories. However, it’s also used in agriculture, disease tracking, mapping of types of soil, water quality control, mines, etc.

With this camera you can see the differences in material, vegetation and minerals.

Cubert

Cubert is a company that specializes in multispectral and hyperspectral cameras.

Cubert has a hyperspectral camera that is slightly different from the original hyperspectral camera, as the original camera uses scanning and preparation to obtain the data whereas the camera from Cubert uses Snapshot technology. This allows you to obtain live feed from the camera and it can be uploaded directly to the software program.

Cubert software program

With the accompanying software program from Cubert’s camera, you can view the image from the camera, take photos, save and edit them. You can use the Cubert software to recognize and sign materials and fabrics. There is also a smart software that can automatically recognize materials and fabrics, you can mark the material / fabric and the program will be able to recognize and follow it on the camera image.

Differences between the multispectral camera and hyperspectral camera.

The main difference between the multi- and hyperspectral camera is that the hyperspectral camera sees many more light bands than the multispectral camera and thus can create a more accurate representation of what is in the camera image. A multispectral camera has 3 to 10 light bands, whereas a hyperspectral camera has more than 100. A hyperspectral camera could therefore recognize the difference between various substances, such as cotton and polyester, where a multispectral camera would not be able to.

A disadvantage of the hyperspectral image and having so many light bands is that you have to deal with a lot of detail, which is often more difficult to work with.

Below you can see the difference in information from a multispectral camera and a hyperspectral camera.

Above are a variety of minerals displayed from data obtained through a multispectral camera and a hyperspectral camera. If you compare the two images, you can see that the data of the hyperspectral camera is a lot clearer than that of the multispectral camera.

Benefits in agriculture:

You could use this in agriculture to check whether crops are healthy, what the crops are missing, if they are sick, and how old the crops are. You can also check whether soil has enough moisture or check what type of soil it is.

Of course you can also monitor your crops with a multispectral camera, but that is not nearly as detailed as with a hyperspectral camera.

* This is still a fairly old hyperspectral camera with only 40 light bands so the quality of newer hyperspectral cameras is even more detailed.

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