Imaging of an Absorbing Object Embedded in a Dense Scattering Medium by Diffusing Light Topography

A new and simple imaging method for an absorbing object embedded in a dense scattering medium is proposed. The distinct characteristic is the positive usage of the diffusing light in the dense scattering medium to image the absorbing object. The principle is based on the equivalence between a probability distribution function of the path-length and a backscattered intensity distribution integrated spatially in the boundary plane between the medium and the air. The usefulness of the proposed method is experimentally confirmed for a modified pyramidal object painted black and thin tubes filled with black and red inks. The conditions under which the better image can be reconstructed are confirmed from the results of experiments and simulations. It is finally shown that our proposed method is capable of imaging the map of blood vessels distributed under the skin layers.