BEM-NIRFAST: Open source software for 3D Image-guided near-infrared spectroscopy using boundary element method

NIRFAST is open source software for near infrared (NIR) imaging using finite element method for modeling light diffusion tissue. Recently, we integrated an add-on to NIRFAST based on boundary-element method (BEM) solution to the diffusion equation. This toolbox requires only surface discretization of the imaging domain as opposed to volume meshing, geared towards 3D NIR spectroscopy. The software is Matlab-based and provides a framework for surface meshing, forward model, reconstruction and data and solution visualization capabilities as well as ability to run in parallel environments using OpenMP standard. This was validated in simulations, experiments and applied to in-vivo clinical data and was made open-source for the near infrared imaging community.