An integrated spectral imaging system constructed by synchronizing a programmable light source, a high-speed monochrome camera, and a display device is proposed to produce tristimulus images of static and moving objects effectively in real time onto the display. This system is called the CIE-XYZ display. Active spectral illuminants, containing both the device characteristics of camera and display, are projected onto object surfaces as time sequence. The images are captured synchronously by the camera and quickly transmitted to the display device in the RGB signal form so that the accurate tristimulus images are displayed. First, we describe the principle of the CIE-XYZ tristimulus display. The theoretically optimal illuminants contain negative parts in the spectral curves. Second, we design practical illuminants with all positive spectral curves. The color images in our system are composed of the time sequence of RGB component images. Then, the synthesized color images on the display contain color artifacts when objects move fast. An image processing algorithm for correcting the motion color artifact is proposed based on optical flow estimation using a graphics processing unit. The comprehensive performance of the proposed system and algorithms is examined using both static and moving objects. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 329-340, 2015