OBJECTIVEAn optimal automatic selection method of permissible source region is proposed to reduce the ill-conditioned and ill-posed problems in the reconstruction of the light source in bioluminescence tomography.

METHODSThe 2D images captured by CCD are mapped into surface light irradiance distribution based on the light propagating model. The relation matrix between the source and light distribution is obtained by finite element method. Permissive source region is determined by using the automatic selection method proposed in this paper, and then Tikhonov regularization is applied to reconstruct the light source.

RESULTSThe center point distance between the optimal permissible source region and true source is 1.26 mm, and the center point error of the reconstructed light source and true source is 0.47 mm, the volume error is 9.13 mm3.

CONCLUSIONThe optimal permissive source region selection strategy is effective to locate the permissive source region close to the true source, and reduces the reconstructed error due to subjective orientation of permissible source region. This proposed method is the basis of high precision source reconstruction in bioluminescence tomography.