Computing the light distribution in turbid media for different scattering and absorption coefficients from a single Monte Carlo simulation

We present a method that uses a single Monte Carlo simulation (modeling the light distribution in a turbid media) to obtain a set of results for different optical coefficients. This approach eliminates the repetition of simulations for each different parameter. It is based on an adequate formulation of the radiance, expressed as a function of two probability distributions. The first depends only on the phase function and the geometry, while the second one depends only on the optical coefficients. This procedure requires the storage of the number of collisions and the total pathlength of each photon. An example of the applicability of this method is shown, for which an important spare of computer time has been achieved. The main drawback of the method is a loss of convergence which limits its applicability. This effect is discussed as a function of the optical coefficients.