What is disclosed is a system and method for identifying materials comprising an object captured in a video and for using the identified materials to track that object as it moves across the captured video scene. In one embodiment, a multi-spectral or hyper-spectral sensor is used to capture a spectral image of an object in an area of interest. Pixels in the spectral planes of the spectral images are analyzed to identify a material comprising objects in that area of interest. A location of each of the identified objects is provided to an imaging sensor which then proceeds to track the objects as they move through a scene. Various embodiments are disclosed.