Reconstructing a Deblurred 3D Structure in a Turbid Medium from a Single Blurred 2D Image—For Near-Infrared Transillumination Imaging of a Human Body

To provide another modality for three-dimensional (3D) medical imaging, new techniques were developed to reconstruct a 3D structure in a turbid medium from a single blurred 2D image obtained using near-infrared transillumination imaging. One technique uses 1D information of a curvilinear absorber, or the intensity profile across the absorber image. Profiles in different conditions are calculated by convolution with the depth-dependent point spread function (PSF) of the transillumination image. In databanks, profiles are stored as lookup tables to connect the contrast and spread of the profile to the absorber depth. One-to-one correspondence from the contrast and spread to the absorber depth and thickness were newly found. Another technique uses 2D information of the transillumination image of a volumetric absorber. A blurred 2D image is deconvolved with the depth-dependent PSF, thereby producing many images with points of focus on different parts. The depth of the image part can be estimated by searching the deconvolved images for the image part in the best focus. To suppress difficulties of high-spatial-frequency noise, we applied a noise-robust focus stacking method. Experimentation verified the feasibility of the proposed techniques, and suggested their applicability to curvilinear and volumetric absorbers such as blood vessel networks and cancerous lesions in tissues.