Imaging at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

This report provides the description of a recent fine art spectral imaging session at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C. This report also includes subsequent evaluation of the performance of our multi-channel visible-spectral imaging (MVSI) system. The multi-band channels analyzed in this report were obtained using a monochrome CCD and a liquid-crystal tunable filter (LCTF) capturing 31 narrow-band channels. The results showed the effectiveness of our designed spectral imaging when used at a museum environment to capture spectral imaging of fine art paintings. Furthermore, we also verified the dependence of the performance on the selection of the characterization target. Various combinations of imaged targets were used to generate the transformation. Among our characterization target combinations, the one that includes GretagMacbeth ColorChecker DC combined with a target of blue pigments was selected considering its impact on spectral estimation performance in reconstructing painting pigments (Gamblin target). This result points directions to a design of a universal target for painting spectral imaging and estimation