Simple phase unwrapping method with continuous convex minimization

Phase unwrapping is a problem to reconstruct true phase values from modulo 2p phase values measured using various phase imaging techniques. This procedure is essentially formulated as a discrete optimization problem. However, most energy minimization methods using continuous optimization techniques have ignored the discrete nature and solved it as a continuous minimization problem directly, leading to losing exactness of the algorithms. We propose a new minimum norm method that can yield the optimal solution of the discrete problem by minimizing a continuous energy function. In contrast to the graph-cuts method, which is state of the art in this field, the proposed method requires much less memory space and a very simple implementation. Therefore, it can be simply extended to 3D or 4D phase unwrapping problems. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study proposes a new minimum norm method to solve the discrete phase unwrapping problem by minimizing a continuous energy function. Compared to the state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method has smaller memory requirements and a simple implementation, making it applicable to 3D or 4D phase unwrapping problems.