Abstract: An explicit inverse radiative transfer algorithm has been developed to estimate the spatial distribution of a radiant energy source, embedded within a homogeneous plane-parallel medium that can both absorb and scatter light, from measurements of the radiance at its boundaries. The algorithm can be used with fluorescent sources for applications in a variety of fields such as medical imaging and ocean optics. Since the source estimation is done explicitly this algorithm could be used as a starting condition for iterative schemes. The algorithm is intended for use with a beam-expanded laser normally-incident on a target possessing a flat surface, exciting fluorescence at a different wavelength. The algorithm requires that the angle- dependent radiance distribution be measured over incident and outward directions at both boundaries of a slab and that the optical properties of the medium are known a priori. General boundary conditions as well as anisotropic sources can be treated. The algorithm is presented along with some numerical results for a variety of source distributions with a medium modeled as tissue. The results suggest that this algorithm provides a promising way to explicitly estimate the spatial distribution of an embedded source in a participating medium. !10
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