Three-Dimensional Photon Counting Integral Imaging Reconstruction using Merging Reconstruction Method

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new three-dimensional (3D) photon counting integral imaging reconstruction method using elemental image merging process for the effective use of the extracted photons under severely photon starved conditions. In previous methods, the photons are extracted from elemental images using Poisson random process and 3D images are reconstructed by Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE). However, 3D integral imaging with photon counting do not use the photons effectively in reconstruction. Thus, it may not visualize 3D objects in severely low light level conditions. In addition, it may not generate high-quality reconstructed 3D images when the number of the recorded elemental images is insufficient. Therefore, to solve these problems, we propose a new 3D reconstruction method for photon counting integral imaging, which can generate high-quality 3D images without photon loss in the reconstruction process. To prove our method, we carry out the simulation experiments.