A do-it-yourself hyperspectral imager brought to practice with open-source python

Abstract

Commercial hyperspectral imagers (HSIs) are expensive and thus unobtainable for large audiences or research groups with low funding. In this study, we used an existing do-it-yourself push-broom HSI design for which we provide software to correct for spectral smile aberration without using an optical laboratory. The software also corrects an aberration which we call tilt. The tilt is specific for the particular imager design used, but correcting it may be beneficial for other similar devices. The tilt and spectral smile were reduced to zero in terms of used metrics. The software artifact is available as an open-source Github repository. We also present improved casing for the imager design, and, for those readers interested in building their own HSI, we provide print-ready and modifiable versions of the 3D-models required in manufacturing the imager. To our best knowledge, solving the spectral smile correction problem without an optical laboratory has not been previously reported. This study re-solved the problem with simpler and cheaper tools than those commonly utilized. We hope that this study will promote easier access to hyperspectral imaging for all audiences regardless of their financial status and availability of an optical laboratory.