Mcmatlab: An open-source, user-friendly, MATLAB-integrated 3D Monte Carlo light transport solver with heat diffusion and tissue damage

摘要

While there exist many Monte Carlo (MC) programs for solving the radiative transfer equation (RTE) inbiological tissues, we have identified a need for an open-source MC program that is sufficiently user-friendly for usein an education environment, in which detailed knowledge of compiling or UNIX command-line cannot be assumed.Therefore, we introduce Mcmatlab, an open-source codebase thus far consisting of (a) a fast 3D Monte Carlo RTEsolver and (b) a finite-element heat diffusion and Arrhenius-based thermal tissue damage simulator, both run inMATLAB. The kernel for both of these solvers are written in parallelized C and implemented as MATLAB MEXfunctions, combining the speed of C with the familiarity and versatility of MATLAB. We present example resultsgenerated by the RTE solver and the thermal model. Mcmatlab is easy to install and use and can be used by studentsand experienced researchers alike for simulating tissue light propagation and, optionally, thermal damage.