Elimination of honeycomb patterns in fiber bundle imaging by a superimposition method

A superimposition method for alleviating the characteristic artifact structure of an imaging fiber bundle is demonstrated. This method can reduce the inherent honeycomb patterns of fiber bundle images and restore hidden information by using pixelated images captured from neighboring locations. The pixelation effect is suppressed when multiple adjacent images, with centers separated by one core radius and arranged in a square pattern, are superimposed for summation. The restored image has preserved edge sharpness in cellular and vascular structure boundaries, compared to the reference image without pixelation and identical imaging modality, as found by optical coherence tomography. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America