Infrared CIE methodology for chemical group classification

An apparatus comprising:

• a light source in operation illuminating at least one chemical of interest, and
• at least three optical bandpass filters with spectral overlap sufficient to generate a chromaticity chart, said at least three optical bandpass filters in operation receiving light at least one of reflected from and transmitted through the chemical of interest the chemical of interest comprising a plurality of chemical vibrational absorption-emission bands, said at least three optical bandpass filters comprising at least three respective spectral responses, the plurality of stimulus-value signals being based on the at least three respective spectral responses and the plurality of chemical vibrational absorption-emission bands;
• a processor in operation receiving a plurality of stimulus-value signals;
• at least one electromagnetic receiver in operation communicating with said at least three bandpass filters and said processor, said at least three optical bandpass filters transmitting the plurality of stimulus-value signals to said at least one electromagnetic receiver, said at least one electromagnetic receiver transmitting the plurality of stimulus-value signals to said processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by said processor, cause said processor to carry out a method for identifying the at least one chemical of interest, the method comprising:
• generating the chromaticity chart comprising a plurality of chemical groupings;
• classifying the at least one chemical of interest as belonging to a respective chemical grouping of the plurality of chemical groupings based on the chromaticity chart and the plurality of stimulus-value signals,
• wherein said generating a chromaticity chart comprises:
• providing at least three vibrational-color-matching functions, the at least three vibrational-color-matching functions comprising at least three respective weighted linear transforms of the plurality of stimulus-value signals;
• and
• generating the plurality of chemical groupings based on the at least three vibrational-color-matching functions.