title: Agglomerative clustering-based approach for two-dimensional phase unwrapping.
abstract: We describe a novel algorithm for two-dimensional phase unwrapping. The technique combines the principles of agglomerative clustering and use of heuristics to construct a discontinuous quality-guided path. Unlike other quality-guided algorithms, which establish the path at the start of the unwrapping process, our technique constructs the path as the unwrapping process evolves. This makes the technique less prone to error propagation, although it presents higher execution times than other existing algorithms. The algorithm reacts satisfactorily to random noise and breaks in the phase distribution. A variation of the algorithm is also presented that considerably reduces the execution time without affecting the results significantly.
authors.affiliation: School of Computing, Mediterranean University of Science and Technology, Edificio Galileo Galilei, Avda. de los Naranjos s/n, Valencia 46022, Spain. miguel@must-es.com
authors.forename: Miguel Arevalillo
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Herráez
authors.forename: Jesús G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Boticario
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lalor
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Burton