Flexible Computationally Efficient Platform for Simulating Scan Formation in Optical Coherence Tomography with Accounting for Arbitrary Motions of Scatterers

Abstract

A computationally efficient and fairly realistic model of OCT-scan formation in spectral-domain optical coherence tomography is described. The model is based on the approximation of discrete scatterers and ballistic character of scattering, these approximations being widely used in literature. An important feature of the model is its ability to easily account for arbitrary scatterer motions and computationally efficiently generate large sequences of OCT scans for gradually varying configurations of scatterers. This makes the proposed simulation platform very convenient for studies related to the development of angiographic processing of OCT scans for visualization of microcirculation of blood, as well as for studies of decorrelation of speckle patterns in OCT scans due to random (Brownian type) motions of scatterers. Examples demonstrating utilization of the proposed model for generation OCT scans imitating perfused vessels in biological tissues, as well as evolution of speckles in OCT scans due to random translational and rotational motions of localized (but not-point-like) scatterers are given. To the best of our knowledge, such numerical simulations of large series of OCT scans in the presence of various types of motion of scatterers have not been demonstrated before.