Accurate reconstruction of the optical parameter distribution in participating medium based on the frequency-domain radiative transfer equation

Reconstructing the distribution of optical parameters in the participating medium based on the frequency-domain radiative transfer equation(FD-RTE) to probe the internal structure of the medium is investigated in the present work.The forward model of FD-RTE is solved via the finite volume method(FVM). The regularization term formatted by the generalized Gaussian Markov random field model is used in the objective function to overcome the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem. The multi-start conjugate gradient(MCG) method is employed to search the minimum of the objective function and increase the efficiency of convergence. A modified adjoint differentiation technique using the collimated radiative intensity is developed to calculate the gradient of the objective function with respect to the optical parameters. All simulation results show that the proposed reconstruction algorithm based on FD-RTE can obtain the accurate distributions of absorption and scattering coefficients. The reconstructed images of the scattering coefficient have less errors than those of the absorption coefficient, which indicates the former are more suitable to probing the inner structure.     

Numerical developments for short-pulsed Near Infra-Red laser spectroscopy. Part II: inverse treatment

Indirect optical spectroscopy or tomography, that is, mapping of optical properties in scattering and absorption inside a medium given a set of measurements at the boundaries, is highly dependent on the radiative transfer model used to track radiative energy propagation in semi-transparent materials. In the first part of this study, a numerical tool adapted for treating radiative transfer in the frame of short-pulsed laser beam interaction with non-homogeneous matter has been presented. In this paper, it is intended to show how such numerical tools can undergo inversion through adjoint treatment or reverse differentiation.Adjoint models, as well as reverse differentiation, are used in order to allow an efficient computation of the gradient, in the unknown optical parameters space, of an objective or cost function estimating the residual between data obtained at the boundary and predictions by numerical simulations. This gradient is a crucial indication as to update, through line minimization, the set of internal optical properties of the medium.First, the theoretical background of the inverse treatments, both reverse differentiation and adjoint model, for the transient radiative transfer equation model introduced in Part I is developed. Second, different reconstruction configurations are presented. Time-dependent sampling and time filtering effects of the measurements are addressed. Image reconstructions from simulated data are achieved for material phantoms of simple geometry.     

Optical tomography using the time-independent equation of radiative transfer—Part 2: inverse model

Optical tomography is a novel imaging modality that is employed to reconstruct cross-sectional images of the optical properties of highly scattering media given measurements performed on the surface of the medium. Recent advances in this field have mainly been driven by biomedical applications in which near-infrared light is used for transillumination and reflectance measurements of highly scattering biological tissues. Many of the reconstruction algorithms currently utilized for optical tomography make use of model-based iterative image reconstruction (MOBIIR) schemes. The imaging problem is formulated as an optimization problem, in which an objective function is minimized. In the simplest case the objective function is a normalized-squared error between measured and predicted data. The predicted data are obtained by using a forward model that describes light propagation in the scattering medium given a certain distribution of optical properties.In part I of this two-part study, we presented a forward model that is based on the time-independent equation of radiative transfer. Using experimental data we showed that this transport-theory-based forward model can accurately predict light propagation in highly scattering media that contain void-like inclusions. In part II we focus on the details of our image reconstruction scheme (inverse model). A crucial component of this scheme involves the efficient and accurate determination of the gradient of the objective function with respect to all optical properties. This calculation is performed using an adjoint differentiation algorithm that allows for fast calculation of this gradient. Having calculated this gradient, we minimize the objective function with a gradient-based optimization method, which results in the reconstruction of the spatial distribution of scattering and absorption coefficients inside the medium. In addition to presenting the mathematical and numerical background of our code, we present reconstruction results based on experimentally obtained data from highly scattering media that contain void-like regions. These types of media play an important role in optical tomographic imaging of the human brain and joints.     

Inverse radiation problem of temperature distribution in one-dimensional isotropically scattering participating slab with variable refractive index

In this paper, an inverse analysis is performed for estimation of source term distribution from the measured exit radiation intensities at the boundary surfaces in a one-dimensional absorbing, emitting and isotropically scattering medium between two parallel plates with variable refractive index. The variation of refractive index is assumed to be linear. The radiative transfer equation is solved by the constant quadrature discrete ordinate method. The inverse problem is formulated as an optimization problem for minimizing an objective function which is expressed as the sum of square deviations between measured and estimated exit radiation intensities at boundary surfaces. The conjugate gradient method is used to solve the inverse problem through an iterative procedure. The effects of various variables on source estimation are investigated such as type of source function, errors in the measured data and system parameters, gradient of refractive index across the medium, optical thickness, single scattering albedo and boundary emissivities. The results show that in the case of noisy input data, variation of system parameters may affect the inverse solution, especially at high error values in the measured data. The error in measured data plays more important role than the error in radiative system parameters except the refractive index distribution; however the accuracy of source estimation is very sensitive toward error in refractive index distribution. Therefore, refractive index distribution and measured exit intensities should be measured accurately with a limited error bound, in order to have an accurate estimation of source term in a graded index medium.     

Estimation of the optical properties of seawater from measurements of exit radiance

An inverse analysis for simultaneous estimation of the radiation phase function, single scattering albedo and optical thickness in natural waters, from the knowledge of the exit radiance measurements, is presented. A forward and an inverse model are utilized in our analysis. The forward model uses an analytical discrete-ordinates method for solving the radiative transfer equation and the inverse model contains an algorithm for least-squares estimation that is iteratively solved for retrieving the desired optical properties. The experimental data are simulated with synthetic data corrupted with noise. The results show that the optical properties, with the exception of the optical thickness, can be recovered with high accuracy, even for data with up to 10% noise.     

An accurate solver for forward and inverse transport

This paper presents a robust and accurate way to solve steady-state linear transport (radiative transfer) equations numerically. Our main objective is to address the inverse transport problem, in which the optical parameters of a domain of interest are reconstructed from measurements performed at the domain’s boundary. This inverse problem has important applications in medical and geophysical imaging, and more generally in any field involving high frequency waves or particles propagating in scattering environments. Stable solutions of the inverse transport problem require that the singularities of the measurement operator, which maps the optical parameters to the available measurements, be captured with sufficient accuracy. This in turn requires that the free propagation of particles be calculated with care, which is a difficult problem on a Cartesian grid.     

An optimization approach to multi-dimensional time domain acoustic inverse problems

An optimization approach to a multi-dimensional acoustic inverse problem in the time domain is considered. The density and/or the sound speed are reconstructed by minimizing an objective functional. By introducing dual functions and using the Gauss divergence theorem, the gradient of the objective functional is found as an explicit expression. The parameters are then reconstructed by an iterative algorithm (the conjugate gradient method). The reconstruction algorithm is tested with noisy data, and these tests indicate that the algorithm is stable and robust. The computation time for the reconstruction is greatly improved when the analytic gradient is used.     

Optical tomography with the discontinuous Galerkin formulation of the radiative transfer equation in frequency domain

Optical tomography is an inverse method of probing semi-transparent media with the help of light sources. The reconstruction of the optical properties usually employs finite volumes or continuous finite elements formulations of light transport as a forward model for the predictions. In a previous study, we have introduced a generalization of the inversion approach with finite elements formulations by using an integral form of the objective function. The novelty is that the surfaces of the detectors are taken into account in the reconstruction and compatibility is obtained for all finite element formulations. This present paper illustrates this new approach by developing a Discontinuous Galerkin formulation as a forward model for an optical tomography application in the frequency domain framework. Numerical tests are performed to gauge the accuracy of the method in recovering optical properties distribution with a gradient-based algorithm where the adjoint method is used to fastly compute the objective function gradient. It is seen that the reconstruction is accurate and can be affected by noise on the measurements as expected. Filtering of the gradient at each iteration of the reconstruction is used to cope with the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem and to improves the quality and accuracy of the reconstruction.     

光学薄膜鲁棒设计中膜系误差灵敏度控制

提出了一种基于膜系误差灵敏度控制的鲁棒膜系设计方法,建立了鲁棒膜系设计评价函数在膜层参数误差统计分布下的解析表达式,避免统计样本数目有限性造成的样本均值与总体期望的误差,以及过大数目样本造成的长的计算时间消耗,并通过宽带增透膜、中性分光膜和线性透射率滤光片等多种薄膜的鲁棒设计实验证实了其在膜层参数误差控制上的效果。结果表明:该新型鲁棒膜系设计方法具有内在的快速算法特性,其设计膜系对镀膜中的膜厚监控误差不敏感,对于高质量薄膜的重复制备和批量成品率的提高具有实用价值。     

Determination of radiative properties of fibrous media by an inverse method—comparison with the Mie theory

In this paper, we present an inverse method based on experimental measurements of bidirectional reflection and transmission (BRDF and BTDF). Silica wool samples are studied by using an optic spectroscopy apparatus comprising a goniometric device and a grating monochromator. The inverse method allows, by means of a least-squares model, the determination of the radiative properties of the medium: albedo, optical thickness and phase function coefficients. A new phase function model taking into account Henyey and Greenstein functions associated with a Lorentz function is used. Our results achieved with the inverse method are compared to those obtained by the Mie theory.     

The shape gradient of the least-squares objective functional in optimal shape design problems of radiative heat transfer

Optimal shape design problems of steady-state radiative heat transfer are considered. The optimal shape design problem (in the three-dimensional space) is formulated as an inverse one, i.e., in the form of an operator equation of the first kind with respect to a surface to be optimized. The operator equation is reduced to a minimization problem via a least-squares objective functional. The minimization problem has to be solved numerically. Gradient minimization methods need the gradient of a functional to be minimized. In this paper the shape gradient of the least-squares objective functional is derived with the help of the shape sensitivity analysis and adjoint problem method. In practice a surface to be optimized may be (or, most likely, is to be) given in a parametric form by a finite number of parameters. In this case the objective functional is, in fact, a function in a finite-dimensional space and the shape gradient becomes an ordinary gradient. The gradient of the objective functional, in the case that the surface to be optimized is given in a finite-parametric form, is derived from the shape gradient. A particular case, that a surface to be optimized is a “two-dimensional” polyhedral one, is considered. The technique, developed in the paper, is applied to a synthetic problem of designing a “two-dimensional” radiant enclosure.     

Radiative properties of scattering and absorbing dense media: theory and experimental study

We investigate the validity of the radiative transfer equation to model transmission of light through an absorbing and scattering medium. Assuming that radiative transfer equation is valid, the inverse scattering problem for non-polarized radiative transfer in one-dimensional absorbing and scattering media is solved using a parameter identification method. We discuss how to identify the albedo, phase function and extinction coefficient of the medium. We present experimental data that confirm that this approach is robust and can be used to make reliable predictions of the behavior of scattering absorbing systems.     

辐射传递蒙特卡洛法精度分析及数值试验

本文建立了蒙特卡洛法模拟散射参与性介质内辐射传递计算模型。对蒙特卡洛法的计算精度及运行时间进行了较为详细的分析,提出了几种判断计算精度的方法。同时,借助蒙特卡洛法模拟辐射传递过程,进行数值“辐射实验”。利用该“实验结果”进行了物性反问题研究。在已知光学厚度的前提下,得到散射反照率与后半球辐射热流之间的单值函数关系。     

Simultaneous estimation of the temperature and heat rate distributions within the combustion region by a new inverse radiation analysis

A new inverse radiation analysis is presented for estimating the heat rate and temperature distributions in the combustion region from the information of the temperature and heat flux profiles of wall elements in the system. The Monte Carlo method is employed to solve the radiative heat transfer equation. The inverse radiation problem is posed as a minimization problem of the least squares criterion, which is solved by the conjugate gradient method. The performance of the present technique of inverse analysis is evaluated and the effects of the errors of the absorption coefficient, emissivity and convective heat transfer coefficient on the inverse analysis are investigated. The results show that the present technique is robust and yields accurate estimation even with noisy measurement.     

Estimation of emissivities in a two-dimensional irregular geometry by inverse radiation analysis using hybrid genetic algorithm

An inverse radiation analysis is presented for estimating the wall emissivities for an absorbing, emitting, scattering media in a two-dimensional irregular geometry with diffusely emitting and reflecting opaque boundaries from the measured temperatures. The finite-volume method was employed to solve the radiative transfer equation for 2D irregular geometry. The hybrid genetic algorithm which contains local optimization algorithm was adopted to estimate wall emissivities by minimizing an objective function, while reducing computation time. It was found that an increase in the standard deviation in measurements significantly deteriorated the estimation of wall emissivities. Thus, a very accurate measurement was required in inverse radiation for better estimation of wall emissivities, especially, in a high temperature environment.     

一维梯度折射率介质光学特性的反演

在单个方波脉冲入射情况下,利用共轭梯度法对一维梯度折射率介质的折射率、吸收系数以及散射系数进行了反演.正问题采用间断有限元法求解,反问题的解则在正问题的基础上通过共轭梯度法得到.研究结果表明,利用单个方波脉冲入射情况下的时域半球反射率以及时域半球透射率作为测试值能够有效地反演一维梯度折射率介质的光学特性及其分布情况.     

Efficient inverse radiation analysis of temperature distribution in participating medium based on backward Monte Carlo method

An efficient numerical inverse radiation analysis based on the backward Monte Carlo (BMC) method is presented to determine the three-dimensional (3-D) temperature distribution in a large rectangular enclosure containing the participating medium, using radiative intensities in the visible range received by charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. For large radiative sources and small detectors, when the radiation onto a small spot and onto a small direction cone is desired, the BMC method is more efficient than the forward Monte Carlo (FMC) method. Because the temperature reconstruction from the measured radiative intensities is an ill-posed inverse problem, least-square QR decomposition (LSQR) method is introduced to determine the meaningful temperature distribution. In order to gain insight into the effects on the accuracy of temperature distribution reconstruction, the detailed analyses are made using numerical simulations. The results show that the temperature distribution can be reconstructed accurately for the exact and noisy data.     

一种光学层析图像的多准则重建方法

光学层析成像是一个病态重建问题,为克服重建过程的病态性,提出将多准则优化理论引入到图像重建中。利用了三个用于光学层析图像重建的准则:平方误差函数、图像熵函数和局部平滑函数。采用向量优化方法将多准则优化问题转化为单准则优化问题求解。为了确定各个目标函数间的权重系数,提出一种动态权重系数求解方法。重建过程目标函数关于光学参量的梯度计算是关键,因此提出一种基于梯度树的计算方法。实验过程中对多准则重建结果和基于平方误差函数的单准则重建结果做了比较,证明该方法能够克服传统的偏重单一目标的单准则重建的不足,有效地重建光学层析图像,提高图像重建质量。     

各向异性介质辐射特性参数联合反演

本文基于BP神经网络方法结合蒙特卡洛和BEER定律辐射传输模拟方法建立了联合反演各向异性散射介质的辐射特性参数模型。首先采用半球透射率结合半球反射率反演模型反演了各向同性介质的吸收系数和散射系数,在此基础上增加准直透射率,建立了联合反演各向异性介质的吸收系数、散射系数和散射不对称因子三参数联合反演模型。反演结果表明该模型能准确反演出介质辐射特性参数,具有实用意义。此外,为了检验测量误差对模型的反演准确性的影响,分别在不同程度测量误差情况下进行反演,结果显示测量误差对散射不对称因子反演值影响较大。     

Reduced-order modeling of time-dependent reflectance profiles from purely scattering media

Due to the widespread existence and importance of foam, inverse techniques for characterizing industrial foams are of interest. An essential element in an inverse method used to characterize a foam layer is a model of the time-dependent reflectance of a laser pulse. Monte Carlo methods may be used to accurately model reflectance, but these methods are computationally expensive. Computationally efficient methods based on the diffusion approximation have been developed, but this approach is not sufficiently accurate in many cases of interest. Therefore, a computationally efficient and robust method is desirable. This paper presents a computationally efficient method for modeling the time-dependent reflectance of a laser pulse from a non-absorbing, scattering plane layer that is based on reduced-order modeling techniques. The accuracy of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing reflectance profiles for randomly selected foam layer properties with corresponding profiles that were generated from Monte Carlo simulations.