Computationally Efficient Forward Operator for Photoacoustic Tomography Based on Coordinate Transformations.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Imaging
• Medical Physics
• Computational Imaging

Background:

• Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) reconstructs images using ultrasound propagation modeling and inverse problem solving.
• Conventional PAT methods face high computational costs with complex geometries and large imaging volumes due to explicit forward operator use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an efficient transformation-based approach for modeling photoacoustic signals and reconstructing PAT images.
• To reduce the computational burden (memory and time) of 3D photoacoustic tomography.

Main Methods:

• A transformation-based method was proposed, constructing a forward operator for a reference transducer and expanding it using coordinate transformations.
• The inverse problem was solved within a Bayesian framework.
• The approach was validated using numerical simulations and experimental data.

Main Results:

• The proposed method accurately reconstructs 3D photoacoustic images.
• Significant reductions in computational cost were achieved, with over 30-fold decrease in memory consumption in some cases.
• Image quality was maintained compared to conventional methods.

Conclusions:

• The transformation-based approach offers a computationally efficient solution for photoacoustic tomography.
• This method enables faster and less memory-intensive 3D PAT reconstruction.
• The technique holds promise for broader applications of photoacoustic imaging.