Multipurpose Monte Carlo simulator for photon transport in turbid media

Abstract

Monte Carlo methods provide a flexible and rigorous solution to the problem of light transport in turbid media, which enable approaching complex geometries for a closed analytical solution is not feasible. The simulator implements local rules of propagation in the form of probability density functions that depend on the local optical properties of the tissue. This work presents a flexible simulator that can be applied in multiple applications related to optical tomography. In particular, unlike previous codes, the simulator explicitly supports fluorescent-tissues and variance reduction and code parallelization techniques are implemented in order to speed up the execution with fluorochrome-labelled agents. The simulator is validated with simple geometries for which an analytical solution exists, as well as with an experimental polyester resin based optical phantom.