A prototypical spatio-spectral scanning system, introduced in June 2014, consists of a basic slit spectroscope (slit + dispersive element) at some suitable, non-zero distance before a camera. (If the effective camera distance is zero, the system is applicable to spatial scanning). The imaging process is based on spectrally-decoded camera obscura projections: A series of projections from a continuous array of pinholes (= the slit) is projected onto the dispersive element, each projection contributing a rainbow-colored strip to the recorded two-dimensional image. The field of view in the wavelength-coded spatial dimension asymptotically approaches the dispersion angle of the dispersive element as the camera distance from the dispersive element approaches infinity.
Scanning is achieved by moving the camera transverse to the slit (stationary platform), or by moving the entire system transverse to the slit (mobile platform).