Separating surface reflectance from volume reflectance in hyperspectral imaging

Hyperspectral imaging has emerged as a promising diagnostic technique in the medical field. However, reflection from a sample often consists of a combination of surface reflection (also known as glare) and volume reflection. In this study, we propose a method to separate these two by illuminating the samples from three different angles and using a least squares optimization. This widely applicable method showed an adequate distinction between surface and volume reflectance in optical phantoms as well as in breast tissue samples.