color infra-red camera

Current infra-red photo technology (as I understand it), is what allows for taking so-called "night-vision" photos in darkness or near-darkness. However, the pictures always come out monochromatic (usually green).

The infra-red spectrum, while not as wide as the visible light spectrum, could produce color photos if each area of one spectrum were mapped onto the corresponding area of the other spectrum. For instance, the highest-wavelength infra red would map as violet, and the lowest-wavelength infra-red would map as red, with the other colors ranging in-between. Thus, the minor variations in the infra-red spectrum would be translated by the camera into the wider variations of the visible light spectrum, and the images would appear in color.