SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION VISUALIZATION APPARATUS FOR CONCENTRATION OF ABSORBING SUBSTANCE

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method which visualizes the spatial distribution of the concentration of absorbing substances in scattering matters using light. SOLUTION: The visualization method comprises a step 1 for generating a matrix Y of measured values from the intensity of detected light measured; a step 2 in which absorption coefficients of the absorbing substances inside the scattering matters and optical path data obtained by simulating the scattering matters without the absorbing substances through which the light passes are determined using the Monte Carlo method, and a spatial distribution matrix A of the average length of optical paths is generated from the optical path data; a step 3 for deriving a matrix X of unknown numbers from the matrix Y and the matrix A; and a step 4 in which the concentration of the absorbing substances inside specimens from the matrix X of unknown numbers obtained to display the spatial distribution thereof. When the calculation by the Monte Carlo method is done before the start of the processing at the step 2 and the optical path data are already stored and preserved, the optical path data stored and preserved are used. This makes possible the highly accurate and fast visualization of the three- dimensional distribution of the concentration of absorbing substances with higher resolutions.