Visualization strategies for infrared spectroscopic images

Although infrared imaging is becoming more commonplace and publications demonstrating its utility are on the rise, only a small portion of the literature involves visualization strategies and techniques. In order to fully realize the potential of imaging, visualization of the data in the form of images needs to be examined more thoroughly. Visualization techniques are discussed using the dynamic process of polymer dissolution. The dissolution of poly(ethylene oxide)(PEO) was captured as a series of images showing the changes of the polymer front brought about by the dissolving solvent. Using a unique infrared band for both the polymer and solvent, each species is tracked through the entire experiment. The ability to reconstruct the dissolution from the spatially resolved infrared data proves very valuable. However, the processing of the data is not trivial and steps must be taken to ensure that the images best display the specific attributes of the species. Scaling and color mapping are demonstrated to be two ways to achieve excellent imagery.