Real-time polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography data processing with parallel computing

Sensitive interferometry with multimode fibres

Fibre coupling is a convenient implementation of various types of optical sensors. However, when the optical sensor is based upon interferometry, the choice of fibre is usually restricted to a single-mode fibre, limiting the étendue of the sensor system. Here, we show that it is possible to configure an interferometric sensor using a multimode optical fibre supporting many spatial modes, thereby increasing the étendue. By using off-axis holography, the full complex amplitude of the speckle pattern transmitted through the fibre can be recovered from a single frame of a detector array, enabling high-speed operation. Using this approach, we have demonstrated stand-off laser vibrometry where the only collection optic is the multimode fibre itself. Our vibrometer can recover vibration frequencies using a high-speed camera with power levels as low as 0.003μW, well below the noise floor of the camera, with an overall sensor bandwidth above 2300 Hz.

Differentiation of ex vivo human breast tissue using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography

Successful treatment of breast cancer typically requires surgical removal of the tumor. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been previously developed for real-time imaging of the surgical margin. However, it can be difficult to distinguish between normal stromal tissue and cancer tissue based on scattering intensity and structure alone. Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is sensitive to form birefringence of biological tissue. We report on the development of a high-speed PS-OCT system and imaging of ex vivo human breast tissue, showing enhanced contrast between healthy and cancerous tissues based upon collagen content confirmed with corresponding histology. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using PS-OCT to supplement structural OCT as a possible method for intraoperative tumor margin evaluation.

Real-time compressive sensing spectral domain optical coherence tomography

We developed and demonstrated real-time compressive sensing (CS) spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) B-mode imaging at excess of 70 fps. The system was implemented using a conventional desktop computer architecture having three graphics processing units. This result shows speed gain of 459 and 112 times compared to the best CS implementations based on the MATLAB and C++, respectively, and that real-time CS SD-OCT imaging can finally be realized.

Spectral domain optical coherence tomography of multi-MHz A-scan rates at 1310 nm range and real-time 4D-display up to 41 volumes/second

An ultrafast frequency domain optical coherence tomography system was developed at A-scan rates between 2.5 and 10 MHz, a B-scan rate of 4 or 8 kHz, and volume-rates between 12 and 41 volumes/second. In the case of the worst duty ratio of 10%, the averaged A-scan rate was 1 MHz. Two optical demultiplexers at a center wavelength of 1310 nm were used for linear-k spectral dispersion and simultaneous differential signal detection at 320 wavelengths. The depth-range, sensitivity, sensitivity roll-off by 6 dB, and axial resolution were 4 mm, 97 dB, 6 mm, and 23 μm, respectively. Using FPGAs for FFT and a GPU for volume rendering, a real-time 4D display was demonstrated at a rate up to 41 volumes/second for an image size of 256 (axial) × 128 × 128 (lateral) voxels.

Swept source/Fourier domain polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography with a passive polarization delay unit

Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) is a functional imaging method that provides additional contrast using the light polarizing properties of a sample. This manuscript describes PS-OCT based on ultrahigh speed swept source / Fourier domain OCT operating at 1050 nm at 100 kHz axial scan rates using single mode fiber optics and a multiplexing approach. Unlike previously reported PS-OCT multiplexing schemes, the method uses a passive polarization delay unit and does not require active polarization modulating devices. This advance decreases system cost and avoids complex synchronization requirements. The polarization delay unit was implemented in the sample beam path in order to simultaneously illuminate the sample with two different polarization states. The orthogonal polarization components for the depth-multiplexed signals from the two input states were detected using dual balanced detection. PS-OCT images were computed using Jones calculus. 3D PS-OCT imaging was performed in the human and rat retina. In addition to standard OCT images, PS-OCT images were generated using contrast form birefringence and depolarization. Enhanced tissue discrimination as well as quantitative measurements of sample properties was demonstrated using the additional contrast and information contained in the PS-OCT images.

Selection of convolution kernel in non-uniform fast Fourier transform for Fourier domain optical coherence tomography

Gridding based non-uniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) has recently been shown as an efficient method of processing non-linearly sampled data from Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT). This method requires selecting design parameters, such as kernel function type, oversampling ratio and kernel width, to balance between computational complexity and accuracy. The Kaiser-Bessel (KB) and Gaussian kernels have been used independently on the NUFFT algorithm for FD-OCT. This paper compares the reconstruction error and speed for the optimization of these design parameters and justifies particular kernel choice for FD-OCT applications. It is found that for on-the-fly computation of the kernel function, the simpler Gaussian function offers a better accuracy-speed tradeoff. The KB kernel, however, is a better choice in the pre-computed kernel mode of NUFFT, in which the processing speed is no longer dependent on the kernel function type. Finally, the algorithm is used to reconstruct in-vivo images of a human finger at a camera limited 50k A-line/s.

Polarization-maintaining buffered Fourier domain mode-locked swept source for optical coherence tomography

A polarization-maintaining buffered Fourier domain mode-locked (FDML) swept source with a center wavelength of 1300 nm is demonstrated. The scanning rate of the buffered FDML swept source is doubled without sacrificing the output power of the swept source by combining two orthogonally polarized outputs with a polarization beam combiner. The stability of the swept source is improved because the polarization state of the laser beam inside the laser cavity is maintained without the use of any polarization controllers. The swept source is capable of an edge-to-edge tuning range of more than 150 nm and a FWHM range of 95 nm at a 102 kHz sweeping rate and with an average power of 12 mW. A swept source optical coherence tomography (SSOCT) system is developed utilizing this buffered FDML swept source. The axial resolution of the SSOCT system is measured to be 9.4 µm in air. The sensitivity of the SSOCT system is 107.5 dB at a depth of 0.25 mm with a 6 dB roll-off at a depth of 2.25 mm.

Real-time bulk-motion-correction free Doppler variance optical coherence tomography for choroidal capillary vasculature imaging

In this paper, we analyze the retinal and choroidal blood vasculature in the posterior segment of the human eye with optimized color Doppler and Doppler variance optical coherence tomography. Depth-resolved structure, color Doppler and Doppler variance images are compared. Blood vessels down to the capillary level were detected and visualized with the optimized optical coherence color Doppler and Doppler variance method. For in-vivo imaging of human eyes, bulk-motion induced bulk phase must be identified and removed before using the color Doppler method. It was found that the Doppler variance method is not sensitive to bulk-motion and the method can be used without correcting the bulk-motion when the sample-movement-induced velocity changes gradually. Real-time processing and displaying of the structure and blood vessel images are very interesting and is demonstrated using a dual quad-core Central Processing Unit (CPU) workstation. High resolution images of choroidal capillary of the vasculature network with phased-resolved color Doppler and Doppler variance are shown.

High-speed spectral domain optical coherence tomography using non-uniform fast Fourier transform

The useful imaging range in spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) is often limited by the depth dependent sensitivity fall-off. Processing SD-OCT data with the non-uniform fast Fourier transform (NFFT) can improve the sensitivity fall-off at maximum depth by greater than 5dB concurrently with a 30 fold decrease in processing time compared to the fast Fourier transform with cubic spline interpolation method. NFFT can also improve local signal to noise ratio (SNR) and reduce image artifacts introduced in post-processing. Combined with parallel processing, NFFT is shown to have the ability to process up to 90k A-lines per second. High-speed SD-OCT imaging is demonstrated at camera-limited 100 frames per second on an ex-vivo squid eye.

Graphics processing unit accelerated non-uniform fast Fourier transform for ultrahigh-speed, real-time Fourier-domain OCT

We implemented fast Gaussian gridding (FGG)-based non-uniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT) on the graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture for ultrahigh-speed, real-time Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT). The Vandermonde matrix-based non-uniform discrete Fourier transform (NUDFT) as well as the linear/cubic interpolation with fast Fourier transform (InFFT) methods are also implemented on GPU to compare their performance in terms of image quality and processing speed. The GPU accelerated InFFT/NUDFT/NUFFT methods are applied to process both the standard half-range FD-OCT and complex full-range FD-OCT (C-FD-OCT). GPU-NUFFT provides an accurate approximation to GPU-NUDFT in terms of image quality, but offers >10 times higher processing speed. Compared with the GPU-InFFT methods, GPU-NUFFT has improved sensitivity roll-off, higher local signal-to-noise ratio and immunity to side-lobe artifacts caused by the interpolation error. Using a high speed CMOS line-scan camera, we demonstrated the real-time processing and display of GPU-NUFFT-based C-FD-OCT at a camera-limited rate of 122 k line/s (1024 pixel/A-scan).

Real-time processing for full-range Fourier-domain optical-coherence tomography with zero-filling interpolation using multiple graphic processing units

The real-time display of full-range, 2048?axial pixelx1024?lateral pixel, Fourier-domain optical-coherence tomography (FD-OCT) images is demonstrated. The required speed was achieved by using dual graphic processing units (GPUs) with many stream processors to realize highly parallel processing. We used a zero-filling technique, including a forward Fourier transform, a zero padding to increase the axial data-array size to 8192, an inverse-Fourier transform back to the spectral domain, a linear interpolation from wavelength to wavenumber, a lateral Hilbert transform to obtain the complex spectrum, a Fourier transform to obtain the axial profiles, and a log scaling. The data-transfer time of the frame grabber was 15.73?ms, and the processing time, which includes the data transfer between the GPU memory and the host computer, was 14.75?ms, for a total time shorter than the 36.70?ms frame-interval time using a line-scan CCD camera operated at 27.9?kHz. That is, our OCT system achieved a processed-image display rate of 27.23 frames/s.

Real-time 4D signal processing and visualization using graphics processing unit on a regular nonlinear-k Fourier-domain OCT system

We realized graphics processing unit (GPU) based real-time 4D (3D+time) signal processing and visualization on a regular Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) system with a nonlinear k-space spectrometer. An ultra-high speed linear spline interpolation (LSI) method for lambda-to-k spectral re-sampling is implemented in the GPU architecture, which gives average interpolation speeds of >3,000,000 line/s for 1024-pixel OCT (1024-OCT) and >1,400,000 line/s for 2048-pixel OCT (2048-OCT). The complete FD-OCT signal processing including lambda-to-k spectral re-sampling, fast Fourier transform (FFT) and post-FFT processing have all been implemented on a GPU. The maximum complete A-scan processing speeds are investigated to be 680,000 line/s for 1024-OCT and 320,000 line/s for 2048-OCT, which correspond to 1GByte processing bandwidth. In our experiment, a 2048-pixel CMOS camera running up to 70 kHz is used as an acquisition device. Therefore the actual imaging speed is camera- limited to 128,000 line/s for 1024-OCT or 70,000 line/s for 2048-OCT. 3D Data sets are continuously acquired in real time at 1024-OCT mode, immediately processed and visualized as high as 10 volumes/second (12,500 A-scans/volume) by either en face slice extraction or ray-casting based volume rendering from 3D texture mapped in graphics memory. For standard FD-OCT systems, a GPU is the only additional hardware needed to realize this improvement and no optical modification is needed. This technique is highly cost-effective and can be easily integrated into most ultrahigh speed FD-OCT systems to overcome the 3D data processing and visualization bottlenecks.