Experimental evaluation of reconstruction algorithms for limited view photoacoustic tomography with line detectors

A method for photoacoustic tomography is presented that uses line integrals over the acoustic wave field from a photoacoustic source for the reconstruction of a three-dimensional image. The line integrals are acquired with an optical line sensor based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. Image reconstruction is a two-step process. In the first step data from a scan of the line outside the object are used to reconstruct a linear projection of the source distribution. In the second step the inverse linear Radon transform is applied to multiple projections taken at different directions. This study focuses on the first step comparing two different open scan curves of the line detector around the object and corresponding two-dimensional reconstruction algorithms. An open curve, such as a 180° arc or an 'L' formed by two lines, establishes a limited view problem for which limitations exist concerning the stability of the reconstruction. Using experimental data from phantoms, time domain direct and iterative reconstruction algorithms as well as frequency domain (FD) algorithms are compared. The results indicate that although the image quality for all algorithms is similar, the FD algorithms offer much faster reconstruction speed, whereas the time domain algorithms allow for a refinement of image quality by including special correction procedures.