Determination of three optical properties from subdiffusive spatially resolved reflectance calculations.

We report a theoretical study on the determination of three optical properties from spatially resolved reflectance calculations. In particular, the reduced scattering coefficient μs′, the absorption coefficient μa, and the recently defined phase function parameter σ are identified. The solution of the inverse problem is based on the principal component analysis of a large set of reflectance profiles that were calculated using an analytical solution of the radiative transfer equation. Different phase function types were studied to test the method in the range of 0.63  mm−1≤μs′≤4.2  mm−1 and 0.002  mm−1≤μa≤0.1  mm−1. For curves impaired with noise, we were able to reconstruct μs′ and μa with relative median errors of 2.5% and 12%, respectively, and σ with an absolute median error of 0.04.