Mesh Optimization for Monte Carlo-Based Optical Tomography

Photonics. 2015 Jun;2(2):375-391. doi: 10.3390/photonics2020375. Epub 2015 Apr 9.

Abstract

Mesh-based Monte Carlo techniques for optical imaging allow for accurate modeling of light propagation in complex biological tissues. Recently, they have been developed within an efficient computational framework to be used as a forward model in optical tomography. However, commonly employed adaptive mesh discretization techniques have not yet been implemented for Monte Carlo based tomography. Herein, we propose a methodology to optimize the mesh discretization and analytically rescale the associated Jacobian based on the characteristics of the forward model. We demonstrate that this method maintains the accuracy of the forward model even in the case of temporal data sets while allowing for significant coarsening or refinement of the mesh.

Keywords: Monte Carlo; fluorescence molecular tomography; mesh optimization; mesh-based Monte Carlo; optical tomography; time-gated optical tomography.