Estimating spectral reflectance from camera responses based on CIE XYZ tristimulus values under multi‐illuminants

A new spectral reflectance estimation method based on CIE XYZ values under multi-illuminants was proposed to obtain multi-spectral images accurately by using digital still cameras. CIE XYZ values under multi-illuminants were initially predicted from raw RGB responses by using a polynomial model with local training samples. Then, spectral reflectance was constructed from the predicted CIE XYZ values via the pseudo-inverse method. Experimental results indicated that the new spectral reflectance estimation method significantly outperformed the traditional colorimetric characterization method without requiring extra training samples or greatly increasing computational complexities. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2016