A Walk Through Spectral Bands: Using Virtual Reality to Better Visualize Hyperspectral Data

Abstract

One of the basic challenges of understanding hyperspectral data arises from the fact that it is intrinsically 3-dimensional. A diverse range of algorithms have been developed to help visualize hyperspectral data trichromatically in 2-dimensions. In this paper we take a different approach and show how virtual reality provides a way of visualizing a hyperspectral data cube without collapsing the spectral dimension. Using several different real datasets, we show that it is straightforward to find signals of interest and make them more visible by exploiting the immersive, interactive environment of virtual reality. This enables signals to be seen which would be hard to detect if we were simply examining hyperspectral data band by band.