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Direct phase unwrapping method based on a local third-order polynomial fit

Article  in  Applied Optics · January 2019

DOI: 10.1364/AO.58.000436

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 Research Article Applied Optics 1

Direct phase unwrapping method based on a local

third-order polynomial fit
A LEJANDRO T ÉLLEZ -Q UIÑONES1,* , R ICARDO L EGARDA -S ÁENZ2 , A DÁN S ALAZAR -G ARIBAY1 , J UAN C.
VALDIVIEZO -N.1 , AND M IGUEL L EÓN -R ODRÍGUEZ3
1 CONACYT-CentroGeo (Mérida), Sierra Papacal-Chuburná Km 5, Mérida-Yucatán, México, 97302
2 CLIR at FMAT-UADY, Anillo Periférico N-Tablaje Cat. 13615, Mérida-Yucatán, México, 97203
3 Universidad Politécnica de Guanajuato, Av. Universidad Sur 1001, Cortazar-Guanajuato, México, 38496
* Corresponding author: atellezq@gmail.com

Compiled January 8, 2019

When recovering smooth phases by phase unwrapping algorithms, many non-iterative algorithms are
available. However, normally those algorithms offer approximations of the current phase that cannot
be accurate enough. This is because the majority of them are based on global approaches, instead of
local ones. Although the smooth estimations are not often expected in phase reconstructions for real
applications, a smooth initial guess could be useful for the robust iterative techniques. Therefore, based
on the most recent local polynomial approaches, we propose a simple least square fitting of the partial
derivatives of the phase, normally estimated from the wrapped operator, by considering local polynomial
models of the phase up to the third order. Synthetic and real data of wrapped phases are considered in
our work. © 2019 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (120.0120) Instrumentation, measurement, and metrology; (120.5050.) Phase measurement;(120.3180) Interferome-
try; (120.2650) Fringe analysis; (100.0100) Image processing; (100.5088) Phase unwrapping.
To cite this article: Applied Optics, Vol. 58, No. 2, pp.436-445 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.58.000436

1. INTRODUCTION use of partial derivatives of

ψ(m, n) = W [φ(m, n)] := atan2[s(m, n), c(m, n)], (1)

The theory on two-dimensional phase unwrapping conforms
an extensive field of study that has been covered by many au- where atan2 (or mod2π ) is an equivalent function to an inverse
thors [1–6]. The phase unwrapping problem consists of esti- tangent (a 2π-module function), such that −π < ψ(m, n) ≤ π.
mating a phase function φ = φ( x, y) from its wrapped version However, alternative methods that avoid the input ψ can be con-
ψ := W [φ], where W is the so-called wrapped operator [7]. Specif- sidered, as in the case of the iterative demodulation techniques
ically, when ideally assuming that |∆ x φ|, |∆y φ| < π (where [16–18] that involve the minimization of functionals like
∆ x φ = φ( x + ∆x, y) − φ( x, y), ∆y φ = φ( x, y + ∆y) − φ( x, y)), n
this problem derives from the integration of some particular par- U [Φm,n ] := ∑ [c( p, q) − cos (φ( p, q))]2
tial derivatives given by W [∂ψ/∂x ] = ∂φ/∂x and W [∂ψ/∂y] = ( p,q)∈Wm,n
o
∂φ/∂y, respectively. The unwrapping problem has been stud- + [s( p, q) − sin (φ( p, q))]2 ,
ied from the perspective of many physical applications that 
involve the recover of the argument of a complex signal, and


 phase values of set {φ( p, q)|( p, q) ∈ Wm,n },

among these interesting fields we find holography, optical inter- Φm,n := or coefficients from model
ferometry [8–13], and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interfer- 

 φ( p, q) = c + c ( x − x ) + c (y − y ),

ometry [3–6, 14, 15]. In many of these applications, ignoring the 0 1 p m 2 q n
valuable information of the amplitude terms, the discretization (2)
φ(m, n) = φ( xm , yn ) per pixel (m, n) is immersed in estimations ignoring the possible carrier frequencies, smoothing parame-
of cos (φ(m, n)) and sin (φ(m, n)), given by images with values ters, and regularizing values. This minimization takes place on
c(m, n) = c( xm , yn ) and s(m, n) = s( xm , yn ), respectively. There- subsets of pixels Wm,n with available information that contain
fore, the aforementioned unwrapping problem starts from the (m, n), where Φm,n is understood as a vector of phase values
 Research Article Applied Optics 2

to be estimated, or a vector of coefficients of some local poly- ( p9 , q9 ) = ( xm+1 , yn+1 ), belong to Lm,n , where the central ele-
nomial model of φ, normally of order one. Although the in- ment would be ( p5 , q5 ) = ( xm , yn ). If K = 25, then ( xm , yn )
put data in a demodulation is not rigorously ψ or its wrapped would be ( p13 , q13 ). On this lattice, it will be assumed that the
partial derivatives, in some informal sense, the demodulation phase φ to be estimated, behaves as a polynomial of certain de-
process can be considered as an unwrapping method when tak- gree. For our proposal, we are going to assume that φ behaves
ing into account such entries. This is consequence of the fact as
that cos (φ) = cos (ψ) and sin (φ) = sin (ψ). Something similar
happens when reconstructing the phase without unwrapping (a
φm,n ( x, y) := C0m,n + C1m,n ( x − xm ) + C2m,n (y − yn )
non-unwrapping method) as in [19, 20], where the estimations
of the partial derivatives of φ( x, y) are directly calculated from +C3m,n ( x − xm )2 + C4m,n ( x − xm )(y − yn ) + C5m,n (y − yn )2
the partial derivatives of c( x, y) and s( x, y). For instance,
+C6m,n ( x − xm )3 + C7m,n ( x − xm )2 (y − yn )
∂s ∂c ∂φ
c −s = , (3) +C8m,n ( x − xm )(y − yn )2 + C9m,n (y − yn )3 .
∂x ∂x ∂x
(4)
when ideally c = cos (φ) and s = sin (φ). Rigorously, any This is a third order polynomial with nine coefficients C m,n :=
method that constructs the phase from the wrapped partial (C1m,n , . . . , C9m,n )> (where > denotes vector transposition), and
derivatives of ψ is declared an unwrapping method, however, a piston term φm,n ( xm , yn ) = C0m,n . If we have an estimation
assuming that the unwrapping operation is merely a removal of of the piston in Lm,n , we only need to estimate the rest of the
2π-jump discontinuities of object ψ, direct integrations of forms coefficients, by a simple minimization of the error function
like Eq.(3) can be informally considered as unwrapping methods
when using c = cos (ψ) and s = sin (ψ).
Now, motivated in the local-polynomial approaches in [21– e := eU + eV ,
23], and the most recent works in [24, 25], we propose the least-
squares fitting of partial derivatives involved with the use of K  2
∂φm,n
third order polynomials, described in [26], as a possible unwrap- eU := ∑ ∂x
( pk , qk ) − Uk ,
(5)
ping algorithm. As we will see in the upcoming sections, the re- k =1
cursive or iterative methods in [22–25] cannot be compared with
our proposal, because our algorithm is a direct or a closed local- K  2
∂φm,n
estimation of the phase from its gradient, that could be used as eV : = ∑ ∂y
( pk , qk ) − Vk ,
an initial guess of such a robust or recursive methodologies. Our k =1
proposal is not a demodulation or a phase tracking technique as
exposed in [21–23], neither it is an unwrapping method based on where Uk = U ( pk , qk ), and Vk = V ( pk , qk ), are estimations of the
a state space analysis or a Kalman filter approach as in [24, 25]. partial derivatives ∂φ/∂x, and ∂φ/∂y, respectively, evaluated in
However, our method represents an interesting, non-iterative, the sampling points ( pk , qk ) ∈ Lm,n . In the context of a phase
and easy-to-program phase estimation, that eventually could unwrapping problem, these estimations are U = W [∂ψ/∂x ] and
be generalized or adapted as those more complex methodolo- V = W [∂ψ/∂y], correspondingly. Thus, a local minimizer of
gies. Although our proposal is a very simple multiple local function e = e(C m,n ) can be constructed from independent local
least-squares fitting, we have not seen similar descriptions in minimizers of the functions eU = eU ( a) and eV = eV (b), where
the specialized literature. Even in close references to our work, a := ( a1 , . . . , a6 )> := (C1m,n , C3m,n , C4m,n , C6m,n , C7m,n , C8m,n )> , and
where first and second order polynomials are considered, there b := (b1 , . . . , b6 )> := (C2m,n , C4m,n , C5m,n , C7m,n , C8m,n , C9m,n )> , re-
is no an specific proceeding on how the initial guesses of those it- spectively. If we consider the matrix variables
erative approaches are constructed. They are normally declared
in terms of unknown expected values [24, 25] or as zero matrices  
or vectors [22]. Thus, section 2 describes our proposal, and sec- 1 2uk vk 3u2k 2uk vk v2k
tion 3 provides some reconstruction examples using synthetic
 
 uk 2u2k uk vk 3u3k 2u2k vk uk v2k 
 
(with and without noise) and real data. Examples of our method  
compared with some other classic, non-iterative, unwrapping K  vk 2uk vk v2k 3u2k vk 2uk v2k v3k 

algorithms are also considered in section 3. Finally, in section 4, MU := ∑  ,
2 2u3k u2k vk 3u4k 2u3k vk u2k v2k 
k =1  u k
 
we point out some conclusions and directives for future work.  
2u2k vk uk v2k 3u3k vk 2u2k v2k uk v3k 
 
 uk vk
 
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSAL v2k 2uk v2k v3k 3u2k v2k 2uk v3k v4k
On a square domain Ω = [ Xin f , Xsup ] × [Yin f , Ysup ] of posi- (6)
tions ( x, y), we have the discretization of a wrapped phase  
ψ(m, n) = ψ( xm , yn ), given by xm := Xin f + (m − 1)∆x with 1 uk 2vk u2k 2uk vk 3v2k
 
m = 1, . . . , M, and yn := Yin f + (n − 1)∆y with n = 1, . . . , N.  uk v2k 2uk vk u3k 2u2k vk 3uk v2k 
 
Here, the differential elements are ∆x := ( Xsup − Xin f )/( M − 1)
 
K  vk uk vk 2v2k u2k vk 2uk v2k 3v3k 

and ∆y := (Ysup − Yin f )/( N − 1), respectively, where the res- MV := ∑  ,
2 u3k 2u2k vk u4k 2u3k vk 3u2k v2k 
k =1  u k
 
olution of our images is MN-pixels. Now, let us consider a  
lattice of position coordinates Lm,n , centered at ( xm , yn ) with 
 uk vk u2k vk 2uk v2k u3k vk 2u2k v2k 3uk v3k 

certain number K of looks or sampling coordinates ( pk , qk )  
with k = 1, . . . , K. For instance, if K = 9, then the sam- v2k uk v2k 2v3k u2k v2k 2uk v3k 3v4k
pling points ( p1 , q1 ) = ( xm−1 , yn−1 ), ( p2 , q2 ) = ( xm−1 , yn ), . . . , (7)
 Research Article Applied Optics 3

and where a := ( a1 , a2 , a3 )> := (C1m,n , C3m,n , C4m,n )> , and theoreti-

−1
    cally a = MU cU . Equivalent equations would be found for MV ,
1 1 cV , and b := (b1 , b2 , b3 )> := (C2m,n , C4m,n , C5m,n )> , concluding
   
 uk  uk −1
cV , that C1m,n = a1 , . . . , C4m,n = (1/2)( a3 + b2 ),
   
  from b = MV
and C5m,n = b3 . Finally, the easiest fit is achieved for a polyno-
   
K  vk
  K  vk
 
cU := ∑ Uk  cV := ∑ Vk 
 
, , (8) mial of order one as in [24, 25], where
 u2k  u2k
   
k =1  k =1 
φm,n ( x, y) := C0m,n + C1m,n ( x − xm ) + C2m,n (y − yn ), (12)
   
   
 uk vk   uk vk 
   
u2k u2k with average least squares solutions as

1 K 1 K
K k∑ K k∑
where uk := pk − xm and vk := qk − yn , then the vector solutions a := a1 := C1m,n = Uk , b := b1 := C2m,n = Vk .
−1 −1
a = MU cU and b = MV cV (least-squares solutions of eU and =1 =1
eV , respectively), suggest that (13)
We have programed our methodology by considering mainly
C1m,n = a1 , the third order model in Eq.(4), with the aim to know the behav-
C6m,n = a4 , ior of the third order polynomials, in comparison to the second
C2m,n = b1 , order polynomials, and the first order ones. Moreover, according
C7m,n = (1/2)( a5 + b4 ),
C3m,n = a2 , (9) to [24], a window with size L > 2 (K > 25 in our work) would
C8m,n = (1/2)( a6 + b5 ), be unnecessarily high, and although we could work with the
C4m,n = (1/2)( a3 + b2 ), smallest window (L = 1 or K = 9), we believe that is preferable
C9m,n = b6 .
C5m,n = b3 , to work with K = 25 in order to have an overdetermined system
of 9 unknowns that corresponds to the number of entries of
This is exactly the same process described in [26], on least- vector C m,n in the third order model. Moreover, according to the
squares fitting of Hartmann data, where the piston term was number of independent variables of the error functions eU and
not of interest. However, this time the information of the piston eV for the third order model, we could work with at least K = 6
is relevant because we need to estimate the constant term C0m,n sampling points, but this would represent a non-symmetrical
of our polynomial model in Eq.(4), on each lattice Lm,n . Let us window inducing a non-balanced local phase estimation in ab-
assume that we have estimated φ on a corner lattice Lm,n by con- sence of inconsistencies and noise.
sidering the piston term C0m,n = ψ( xm , yn ), and the information
of the partial derivatives in the sampling points of Lm,n , as pre- 3. RECONSTRUCTION EXAMPLES
viously described. If we work with a window of 5 × 5 = K = 25
pixels, this corner lattice would be L3,3 . Once we have obtained A. Synthetic example
the coefficients of φm,n in the corner lattice, and consequently all In order to appreciate the capabilities of our algorithm, we have
the values of φ on this lattice, we can follow with subsequent selected as a first reconstruction example a synthetic phase given
estimations on the first row of five pixels. For instance, in the by
next lattice Lm,n+1 (that is L3,4 ), the piston term is declared as φ( x, y) = 69( x2 + y2 ) exp [− x2 − y2 ], (14)
C0m,n+1 = φm,n ( xm , yn+1 ) because in theory φm,n ( xm , yn+1 ) = a volcano function defined on a square domain Ω = [−3.5, 3.5] ×
φm,n+1 ( xm , yn+1 ) and φm,n+1 ( xm , yn+1 ) = C0m,n+1 according to [−3.5, 3.5] with discretization M = N = 256. Among the classic
Eq.(4). In the new window Lm,n+1 , we can calculate again the algorithms that offer smooth solutions, we find the fast Fourier
coefficients of the model φm,n+1 , and with this new model we transform (FFT) based method, as described in [7]. Another inter-
can also redefine the common values of φ, previously calculated esting algorithm that assumes a global phase decomposition in
on Lm,n with the old model φm,n . At the end of all these consec- radial base functions (RBF) [13], can also produce smooth phase
utive estimations of φ on the first row of 5 pixels (until reach estimations. Since the unwrapping problem can be translated
L3,N −2 ), we can repeat the same process in a column-by-column in finding the solution of a Poisson equation with a Laplacian
fashion. Moreover, the same sequence could start first with an ρ estimated from U and V, the basic idea in the FFT method
estimation of φ on the first column of five pixels, followed by a consists in obtaining an estimation of φ from the periodic ex-
similar swept in a row-by-row way. tensions φ̃ and ρ̃. The periodic Laplacian ρ̃ is constructed by
On the other hand, the degree of the polynomial could be mirror reflections of the original Laplacian ρ, and an estimation
two as in [22, 23], in such a away that of φ̃ can be obtained from its FFT coefficients, because they are
in terms of the equivalent ones for ρ̃. In addition, in the case
φm,n ( x, y) := C0m,n + C1m,n ( x − xm ) + C2m,n (y − yn ) of the unwrapping algorithm that uses exponential radial base
functions (RBF method), the global phase model is assumed
+C3m,n ( x − xm )2 + C4m,n ( x − xm )(y − yn ) + C5m,n (y − yn )2 .
as a weighted linear combination of R = P × Q Gaussians
(10) exp {−[( x − x p )2 + (y − yq )2 ]/[2σ2 ]} with a fixed width or ra-
This would imply that dius σ = max {( Xsup − Xin f )/( P − 1), (Ysup − Yin f )/( Q − 1)},
    distributed equidistantly along the domain Ω where p =
1 2uk vk 1 1, . . . , P and q = 1, . . . , Q. The partial derivatives of the global
K   K  
MU := ∑  uk 2u2k uk vk  , cU := ∑ Uk  uk  , model must coincide with U and V per pixel, inducing a linear
   
k =1
  k =1
  system of R × R equations that can be solved for these weights.
vk 2uk vk v2k vk Due to their easy implementation and characteristics, the FFT
(11) and the RBF methods have been programed for comparison
 Research Article
Fig. 1. Synthetic phase φ given by Eq.(14) and its estimations;
the FFT method φFFT , the RBF method φRBF , and the proposal
φLTO . Middle profiles at y = 0 are depicted in the bottom;
continuous line for φ, dashed line for φFFT , dot-dashed line for
φRBF , and dotted line for φLTO .
purposes with our proposal; the local third order (LTO) method
described in section 2. For the volcano function, we can ob-
serve in Fig.(1) the synthetic surface φ and its estimations φFFT ,
φRBF , and φLTO , respectively. The original wrapped phase ψ
for volcano function and its re-wrapped estimations are shown
in Fig.(2). By assuming the surface matrices as column vectors
with MN-entries, we can consider the normalized error between
the synthetic phase φ and any estimation φ̂ = φFFT , φRBF , φLTO ,
given by
E = ||φ − φ̂||/(||φ|| + ||φ̂||), (15)
where || · || denotes Euclidean norm in R MN -space. This error
varies between 0 and 1, where 0 represents the perfect estima-
tion, and 1, the worst result. The estimations in Fig.(1) have
been translated in z-direction according to a fixed reference
position ( x, y) = (−3.5, 0), in other words, φ̂( x, y) has been
replaced by φ̂( x, y) + φ(−3.5, 0) − φ̂(−3.5, 0) for all ( x, y) in Ω.
This was in order to obtain the minimal normalized errors ob-
served for all these methods. According to our results, the error
for the FFT method was EFFT = 0.2294, for the RBF method
was ERBF = 0.0629, and for the proposal was ELTO = 0.0061.
The accuracy of the estimation can be appreciated in the profile
graphics depicted in Fig.(1), where transversal sections at y = 0
have been taken into account. On the other hand, it is interesting
to notice in Fig.(2) that, although ψRBF differs much from ψ in
comparison to ψFFT , the RBF estimation produced an error less
than the FFT one. Being programmed all these routines in Scilab
Applied Optics 4
Fig. 2. Wrapped phase ψ for the volcano function in Eq.(14)
and its re-wrapped estimations with the FFT method ψFFT , the
RBF method ψRBF , and the proposal ψLTO , respectively.
free software, the computing time in seconds for the FFT based
method was t FFT = 8.0362, for RBF was t RBF = 168.5819, and
for LTO was t LTO = 38.3561, respectively. As expected, although
the FFT routine was not accurate enough, it was faster than
the other methods, whereas the RBF method programed with
R = 10 × 10 = 100 equidistant Gaussians (as suggested in [13])
was very slow. A better accuracy for the RBF methodology can
be achieved by considering more Gaussians, but its computing
time increases considerably. Therefore, a good balance between
computing time and accuracy is observed in the proposal for
this particular example.
Furthermore, the FFT and RBF estimations seem to have
a problem of congruence with respect to ψ. This anomaly is
occasionally observed in phase unwrapping routines classified
as L2 -norm least squares algorithms [7] (FFT, RBF, and LTO are
included in this family). This means that in some cases these
algorithms offer re-wrapped solutions that do not coincide with
the original ψ. This problem can be corrected by considering the
additional post-processing congruence operation
φ̃ = φ̂ + W [ψ − φ̂], (16)
applied to a previous least squares estimation φ̂, as suggested
in [7]. This operation improves the estimation with respect
to re-wrapped phase error, but sometimes, it produces unex-
pected phase solutions. For the previous reconstructions, this
post-processing step was not required by the LTO estimation.
However, in the FFT and RBF estimations where the congruence
operation took place, a minor improvement in phase error was
observed with EFFT = 0.1962 and ERBF = 0.0627, producing
deficient discontinuous results.
B. Simulation with noise
When additive random noise 0 ≤ σ(m, n) ≤ 1 is present in the
phase, we can expect some variations in our results because our
 Research Article Applied Optics 5

Fig. 3. Reconstruction of a noisy peaks function φNoisy with η = 2 (run 2) and different routines; the non-unwrapping method
φNU , the local first order estimation φLFO , the second order estimation φLSO , and the third order one φLTO . The synthetic noise
free surface φ is located at the top-left side, and all its estimations are sub-entitled, according the method used. The corresponding
wrapped versions of all these phase surfaces are located at the right.

proposal do not consider any additional step to counteract this defined on Ω = [−3, 3] × [−3, 3] with discretization M = N =
error source. Thus, in order to partially deal with this kind of 200, for the reconstruction of a noisy phase φNoisy at η = 2. For
corrupted data, we can be helped by a simple wrapped phase a comparison of the LTO approach with lower polynomial or-
filter as ders and alternative methods, we have programed the local first
order (LFO) and the local second order (LSO) fits, described in
ψFilt (m, n) = atan2[arg1 (m, n), arg2 (m, n)], (17) section 2, and the non-unwrapping (NU) method [19, 20], ex-
described in [7], where posed in section 1. After generating ψNoisy = W [φNoisy ] from the
corrupted peaks function, the filtered noisy wrapped element,
1 calculated by Eq.(17), has been considered as the input of all
arg1 (m, n) = ∑ sin [ψ(m + p, n + q)], these methods. The results with respect to processing times (in
p,q=−1
1
(18) seconds) and normalized errors, for two arbitrary reconstruction
arg2 (m, n) = ∑ cos [ψ(m + p, n + q)]. runs applied to this noisy example, are reported in Table(1).
p,q=−1

Alternatively to this pre-processing step, we could filter the Table 1. Processing times t and normalized errors E for the
wrapped partial derivatives (instead of ψ), by considering a reconstructions of the noisy peaks function (200 × 200 pixels)
Tikhonov regularizing mask [27] as proposed in [6], but the in two runs at η = 2.
effects of such processing can be analyzed in future works. Now,
Method t (run 1) E (run 1) t (run 2) E (run 2)
corrupted pattern simulations can be implemented when certain
percentage of noise 0 ≤ η ≤ 100 is added to the synthetic noise- NU 1.0562 0.2394 1.0438 0.1122
free phase φ. This is achieved by wrapping the noisy phase
LFO 10.3247 0.0704 10.2660 0.0366
φNoisy (m, n) = φ(m, n) + (η/100)|φ|max [−1 + 2σ(m, n)], (19) LSO 16.0170 0.0364 16.1295 0.0356
where |φ|max is the maximum absolute value of φ for all (m, n). LTO 22.6828 0.0342 22.7123 0.0249
As an example, we can consider the synthetic peaks function given
by
Graphics of the surface estimations of φ and its re-wrapped
φ( x, y) = 12(1 − x )2 exp [− x2 − (y + 1)2 ] patterns for run 2 are shown in Fig.(3). As we can see in this
figure, all the local approaches were good enough, with the
−40[(1/2) x − x2 − y2 ] exp [− x2 − y2 ] (20)
exception of the NU estimation. However, the best result was
−(4/3) exp [−( x + 1)2 − y2 ], achieved for the LTO method.
 Research Article Applied Optics 6

Fig. 4. a) Normalized errors (E-errors) for the local polynomial estimations at different orders, obtained for Eq.(21) at different
frequencies ω; continuous line for order 1, dashed line for order 2, and dot-dashed line for order 3. b) E-errors for the polynomial
estimations obtained for the co-sinusoidal function with fixed ω = 1 and different percentages of noise η. c) E-errors as in b) with
fixed ω = 4. d) E-errors as in b) and c) with fixed ω = 8.

Onwards, in presence of noise, we can consider the local by

polynomial approaches and any other phase unwrapping algo-
rithm in this work with the addition of the preprocessing step φ( x, y) = 10 cos [ω ( x2 + y2 )1/2 ], (21)
given by the filter in Eq.(17). Taking into account this additional
defined on Ω = [−1, 1] × [−1, 1] with discretization M = N =
step, the noise sensitivity of the algorithms can be measured
100. In this case, different values like 0 ≤ ω ≤ 8 can generate
in terms of η, or alternatively, in terms of a signal to noise
phase forms with different fringe frequencies. If Eord denotes the
ratio (SNR) given by SNR = 20log10 [||φ||/||φ − φNoisy ||] (in
error for the local polynomial estimations of order ord = 1, 2, 3,
dB), where SNR = 63.4dB was achieved for the example in
that is, LFO, LSO, and LTO, respectively, then the sensitivity to
Fig.(3) with η = 2. Another forms to define the SNR, appar-
frequency ω for all these local fits can be observed in Fig.(4)-a).
ently in terms of the noise variance only, have been previously
Now, the sensitivity to noise for all these local approaches, when
considered in [24], and in a favorable but questionable case, we
considering the fixed value ω = 1 and levels of random noise
could think in replacing the Euclidean norms for |φ|max and
in the interval 0 ≤ η ≤ 30, is depicted in Fig.(4)-b). Equiva-
|φ − φNoisy |max in the aforementioned SNR formula, in order
lent graphics are shown in Figs.(4)-c), and d), when considering
to obtain SNR = 20log10 (100/η ). In other words, a version of
fixed frequencies ω = 4 and ω = 8, respectively. According
SNR exclusively in terms of η and independently of φ in any
to the graphics in Fig.(4), the second and the third local estima-
case. That would imply SNR ≈ 34dB for η = 2, a probably
tions seem to be more appropriate to deal with the frequency
debatable level of noise in terms of SNR. However, since a true
of the signal in Eq.(21). This means that an error less than 0.1
SNR should depend on the power of the signal (which depends
is obtained by the LSO and the LTO methods (item a)), along
on the form of φ and its discretization) and the power of the
the interval 0 ≤ ω < 8. However, in the presence of noise the
noise (in terms of the η-noise level), we are going to restrict our
dynamic range in frequency is reduced, considering an approxi-
noise sensitivity analysis to parameter η instead of SNR values,
mated tolerance of η = 11% of additive random noise for low
in order to be concise and to avoid ambiguities.
frequencies like 0 ≤ ω < 1 (item b)), and 8% for middle frequen-
cies like 1 ≤ ω < 4 (item c)). The LFO approach is quite sensitive
to both, frequency and noise, allowing only good estimations
C. Sensitivity to frequency and noise
for frequencies lower than 2 in absence of noise (item a)), and
In absence of noise, the polynomial degree of our local approach tolerating 7% of noise for low frequencies less than 1 (item b)).
could be useful when considering the relative fringe frequency Finally, although LSO and LTO seem to have similar properties
ω. This frequency can be understood as an amplitude parameter with respect to frequency and noise, a tolerance of 4% of noise
for the argument of the interest signal; in our case, the phase. As is observed in the LTO method for relatively high frequencies
a simple example, we can think in a co-sinusoidal function given such as 4 ≤ ω < 8 (item d)).
 Research Article
D. Real data reconstruction
A SAR fringe pattern ψ with M × N = 521 × 571 pixels has
been considered as an example of real data reconstruction. The
pattern corresponds to a wrapped deformation phase, which in
SAR language is called interferogram. The wrapped deformation
phase is related to earthquake vibrations, and it was generated
and preprocessed with some standard steps applied to two satel-
lite images of Sentinel 1 by using the free software called Sentinel
Application Platform (SNAP) [28, 29]. This pattern is a subset of
a big interferogram from Santiago Pinotepa Nacional-Oaxaca,
a seismic region at the south of Mexico. In Fig.(5), the fringe
pattern ψ of Pinotepa-Oaxaca can be seen, where the result of
our proposal is entitled as φLTO . For a comparison with other
methods, we have also programed the most basic algorithm on
phase unwrapping, the Itoh method [1, 7], whose result is given
by φ Itoh in the same figure. The input of these two algorithms
was the filtered wrapped phase version of the original ψ, accord-
ing to Eq.(17). In this example, the congruence operation was
applied in the LTO estimation, producing an expected solution.
On the other hand, although the Itoh estimations do not require
the congruence operation, the Itoh’s algorithm output in both
cases, with and without congruence applied, was an inconsistent
estimation, as depicted in Fig.(5).
E. Hypothetical application in iterative procedures
Let us consider a wrapped fringe pattern ψ (see Fig.(6)), induced
by the five order polynomial given by
φ( x, y) = 0.9 −1.5x + 18( x2 + y2 ) − 12y4 − 36x2 y2 − 18x4

+50xy4 − 60x3 y2 + 8x5 − 12( xy2 + x3 ) + 10x5
−24y3 + 72x2 y + 30y5 − 60x2 y3 − 90x4 y ,

(22)
translated at point ( x, y) = (0.2, 0.2) and defined on
Ω = [−1, 1] × [−1, 1] with discretization M = N = 200.
Now, considering the phase differences ∆ x φ(m, n) = φ(m +
1, n) − φ(m, n), ∆y φ(m, n) = φ(m, n + 1) − φ(m, n), and the
definition |∆φ|max := max{|∆ x φ(m, n)|, |∆y φ(m, n)||m, n =
1, . . . , M, N }, the previous discretized five order polynomial
satisfies |∆φ|max = 6.5835. In other words, ψ is a very high
frequency pattern that exceeds the Nyquist constraint
|∆φ|max < π, (23)
required for a good sampling [7]. If we applied directly what-
ever of our previous unwrapping algorithms to this particular
example, we would fail for sure. However, the strategy pro-
posed in [30], about focusing our attention in a trust region or a
fringe pattern subset ψ|s of low frequency, as that one appearing
in the right side of Fig.(6), could be useful in some way. For
instance, under the assumption that the phase to be estimated
behaves as the 25th -order polynomial
6 6
φ( x, y) = ∑ ∑ c p,q x p−1 yq−1 , (24)
p =1 q =1
we can minimize the functional in Eq.(2) defined on the global
lattice W := {(m, n)|m, n = 1, . . . , 200}, with independent
variable Φ := (c1,1 , c1,2 , . . . , c6,6 )> . In a trust region like s :=
{(m, n)|m, n = 50, . . . , 150}, we can apply the NU, the FFT,
and the LTO algorithms (theoretically without problem), ob-
taining as a result, the re-wrapped estimations ψ Meth |s , where
Applied Optics 7
Meth = NU, FFT, LTO (See Fig.(7)). So, after implementing a di-
rect fitting between the model in Eq.(24) and all the unwrapped
estimations, considering 25 equidistant sampling points dis-
tributed on s, we can find first initial guesses Φ0 for all these esti-
mations. From these initial coefficients, the polynomial surfaces
can be extended to the global lattice, then, the re-wrapped initial
guesses defined on W can be also obtained (patterns ψ0Meth in
Fig.(7), respectively). Finally, with some iterative minimization
routine (Scilab optim tool in our case), the optimum guesses Φ∗
can be achieved (patterns ψ∗Meth in Fig.(7)). Results in processing
times for finding the optimum iteratively and number of itera-
tions carried out for each process, are reported in Table(2). As
Table 2. Processing times (in seconds) and number of itera-
tions carried out in the optimization routines for different
initial guesses, according to the method.
Method Time No. of iterations Optimum found?
NU 104.4316 387 Yes
FFT 112.5225 403 No
LTO 70.7471 272 Yes
inferred from this table, a good initial guess can reduce time and
number of iterations required for finding an optimal solution.
4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
In this work, we presented a non-iterative phase unwrapping
algorithm based on local third-order polynomial approximations
(the LTO method). The proposal in question, consists of making
first an adjustment over a window of 5 × 5 pixels in some corner
of the fringe pattern. Then, the piston term is propagated to
subsequent windows of the same size, on a row or a column
with 5 pixels width, by updating the phase information from the
partial derivatives estimated by the wrapped operator.
Certainly, the local polynomial approaches in phase unwrap-
ping problems are not new, because in references like [21–25],
the authors have worked with them, but only up to the second
order and in the context of iterative procedures. Therefore, our
proposal represents the introduction of the third order models
for phase unwrapping algorithms in a non-iterative way. More-
over, our methodology is also offering an explanation of how
could be estimated the initial model coefficients, in robust it-
erative procedures like [21–25], from the main hypothesis: the
local polynomial model used. On the other hand, the potential
use of cubic interpolations can be useful in order to reduce the
computational cost of some iterative procedures, just like in [20],
where a cubic model approach demonstrated similar results to a
robust iterative oversampling routine based on the minimization
of an error function. This cost reduction was also observed in
the election of an appropriate initial guess in the context of the
hypothetical iterative problem described in section 3-E. Since
we are proposing in some way the best local polynomial initial
guesses, not only in the third order case, but also in lower orders,
our proposal could be useful as an initial stage in the iterative
algorithms in [21–25], when considering smooth phases.
An interesting question regarding the degree of the poly-
nomial used refers to why we must consider the order three,
instead of an order one or an order two. Well, the logical an-
swer to this question is due to the fact that, with the local third
order approaches, we have the possibility of estimating points
 Research Article
Fig. 5. Real data reconstruction of a SAR interferogram ψ from Pinotepa-Oaxaca. The unwrapped estimations with the Itoh and the
LTO algorithms are given by φ Itoh and φLTO , respectively. The re-wrapped result ψLTO is also depicted.
Fig. 6. Wrapped phase ψ of the five order polynomial in
Eq.(22) and its subset ψ|s of low frequency.
in the phase surface that represent changes of curvature in dif-
ferent directions. In one dimension, this is a clear advantage
normally observed in cubic approaches, such as occurs in cer-
tain cases of oversampling [20]. The third order fit could offer
better results than its quadratic counterpart in absolute slope
errors for inflexion or saddle points. For instance, we can think
in a phase φ( x ) = sin ( x ) defined on the interval [−π/2, π/2]
with discretization N = 51. The central point x26 = 0 repre-
sents an inflexion point of φ, which in the five points lattice
Applied Optics 8
L = { x24 , . . . , x28 } can be locally interpolated by quadratic
functions like g( x ) = a0 + a1 x + a2 x2 or cubic models like
h( x ) = b0 + b1 x + b2 x2 + b3 x3 , respectively. When considering
the errors eg ( x ) = | g0 ( x ) − φ0 ( x )| and eh ( x ) = |h0 ( x ) − φ0 ( x )|
for both models, we can find that eh (0) = 1.3 × 10−5 is consid-
erably less than eg (0) = 3.9434 × 10−3 . Thus, to appreciate the
capabilities of our proposal in some interesting examples (vol-
cano and peaks functions), the LTO approach was compared with
some other classic non-iterative algorithms, like those based
on the use of fast Fourier transforms (the FFT method), radial
base functions (RBF algorithm), and direct integrations of par-
tial derivatives obtained from sine and cosine estimations (NU
method). Through another particular example (the co-sinusoidal
function), a brief analysis on the properties of the local approx-
imations, with respect to polynomial degree, was described in
this study. Based on this analysis, it is inferred that the approxi-
mations of orders 2 and 3 (LSO, and LTO methods, respectively),
could be useful for the estimation of surfaces with relatively
high frequency. However, in some cases the LTO approximation
can offer better results than its LSO counterpart.
On the other hand, since our algorithm consists in the appli-
cation of multiple and sequential polynomial fits, and it makes
a direct use of the information given by the wrapped partial
derivatives of ψ, in principle, it does not consider any previ-
 Research Article
Fig. 7. Firs row: Re-wrapped estimations defined on the subset s for the non-unwrapping method ψNU |s , the FFT method ψFFT |s ,
and the LTO method ψLTO |s . Second and third rows: corresponding 25th -order polynomials for the initial Φ0 and the optimum Φ∗
guesses, respectively.
ous preprocessing step to improve the quality of the data when
considering noise. However, as we could see, good enough esti-
mations were achieved with just the application of the simple
wrapped phase filter described by Eq.(17). With this additional
step, good results were obtained, even with the fringe pattern
that represented a reconstruction from real data of a SAR inter-
ferogram (the Pinotepa-Oaxaca fringe pattern). Nevertheless,
research on other kind of filters applied to the estimated partial
derivatives instead of the wrapped phase, like the regularizing
masks proposed in [6, 27], could be another interesting alterna-
tives for future adaptations.
Finally, an analysis on the sensitivity of the local polynomial
approaches, regarding the presence of possible additive random
noise, was also considered. In the particular example studied on
the co-sinusoidal function, we could see that LSO and LTO meth-
ods have similar properties, however, the LTO method could
tolerate 4% of additive random noise for relatively high frequen-
cies. In contrast, the LFO approximation was very sensitive to
frequency and noise. In this particular first-order approximation,
the resultant least-squares coefficients were an average of the
estimated partial derivatives (Eq.(13)), the so-called expected
estimates described by equation (9) in the Kulkarnis’s work [24].
Therefore, based on this last reference, and in the current study,
Applied Optics 9
another interesting future directive could be the generalization
of the second and the third order approaches, in a similar way
to the Kulkarni’s state space analysis.
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