Simulation of image sensor capture requires a physically accurate description of the light incident on the sensor. The ImagEval digital camera simulator includes a scene database as well as tools to create physically accurate models for a variety of different imaging conditions. 

The scene database is created using methods that ImagEval developed to acquire estimates of the spectral irradiance (photons/sec/nm/m²) generated in both high and low dynamic range imaging environments.  Spectral irradiance images are acquired using a high-resolution scientific-grade color camera combined with calibrated color filters.  The environment is further calibrated using high quality standard reflectance sources (LabSphere Spectralon SRM-99) and a spectro-radiometer (PhotoResearch PR-650).

The high quality database of images serves as a source of input data to the simulator.  From these images, the performance of cameras with lower resolution and lower quality optics can be modeled by adding different types of sensor noise and optical distortion to the acquired image data set.