Noise-insensitive two-dimensional phase unwrapping method

A new two-dimensional phase unwrapping method, based on an iterative computational procedure, is proposed. The method, which is derived with the use of a global cost function to minimize the phase discontinuities in the unwrapped phase map, has shown to produce robust and reliable results on very noisy phase data. Preprocessing operations, such as noise cleaning or segmentation, will in many cases be superfluous but may be included.