Kazuya TAKAGI, Hideaki HANEISHI,* Norimichi TSUMURA and Yoichi MIYAKE

Department of Information and Image Sciences, Chiba University, 1-33, Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku, Chiba, 263-8522 Japan

(Received September 17, 1999; Accepted December 6, 1999)

To deduce the optical properties, the absorption coefficient μ_a and reduced scattering coefficient μ'_s, of turbid medium, Lin et al. (Appl. Opt. 34 (1995) 2362) proposed an oblique incidence reflectometry in which the diffusion approximation was assumed. In this paper we propose an alternative method which does not assume the diffusion approximation but uses a Monte Carlo light propagation model. Two features are extracted from the diffuse reflectance distribution detected on the medium surface, and optical properties are then estimated by looking up the predetermined table generated by Monte Carlo simulations. The validity of the proposed method has been confirmed by computer simulations.

Key words : optical property, turbid medium, oblique incidence, diffuse reflection, computer simulation, Monte Carlo simulation, mass fractal, surface fractal, combined fractal, self-similarity, power law, fractal dimension