Dental Imaging Using a Higher Signal-to-Noise Ratio Optical Coherence Tomography System

This paper presents an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system in conjunction with a novel image reconstruction technique employed for in vitro imaging of human teeth. The primary goal is to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the obtained images. The study entails a comparative analysis between the conventional Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) OCT image reconstruction method and a newly introduced scaled nonuniform discrete Fourier transform (NDFT) approach. The findings reveal that the NDFT method consistently delivers superior results in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and overall image quality, even when dealing with redundant and nonuniform frequency domain samples. In light of these results, this paper concludes that integrating NDFT into OCT procedures has the potential to significantly enhance the quality of image reconstructions, thereby fostering its broader application in the field of dental imaging.