Data analysis methods for chemical imaging data sets typically employ mathematical algorithms common to single point spectroscopy or to image analysis.  The reasoning is that the spectrum acquired by each detector is equivalent to a single point spectrum; therefore pre-processing, chemometrics and pattern recognition techniques are utilized with the similar goal to separate chemical and physical effects and perform a qualitative or quantitative characterization of individual sample components. In the spatial dimension, each chemical image is equivalent to a digital image and standard image analysis and robust statistical analysis can be used for feature extraction.