A model-based 3D phase unwrapping algorithm using Gegenbauer polynomials.

The application of a two-dimensional (2D) phase unwrapping algorithm to a three-dimensional (3D) phase map may result in an unwrapped phase map that is discontinuous in the direction normal to the unwrapped plane. This work investigates the problem of phase unwrapping for 3D phase maps. The phase map is modeled as a product of three one-dimensional Gegenbauer polynomials. The orthogonality of Gegenbauer polynomials and their derivatives on the interval [-1, 1] are exploited to calculate the expansion coefficients. The algorithm was implemented using two well-known Gegenbauer polynomials: Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind and Legendre polynomials. Both implementations of the phase unwrapping algorithm were tested on 3D datasets acquired from a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The first dataset was acquired from a homogeneous spherical phantom. The second dataset was acquired using the same spherical phantom but magnetic field inhomogeneities were introduced by an external coil placed adjacent to the phantom, which provided an additional burden to the phase unwrapping algorithm. Then Gaussian noise was added to generate a low signal-to-noise ratio dataset. The third dataset was acquired from the brain of a human volunteer. The results showed that Chebyshev implementation and the Legendre implementation of the phase unwrapping algorithm give similar results on the 3D datasets. Both implementations of the phase unwrapping algorithm compare well to PRELUDE 3D, 3D phase unwrapping software well recognized for functional MRI.