A system for optically characterizing an acoustic beam generally includes
an immersant, which is an immersion medium seeded with a plurality of
seed particles that respond to illumination with fluorescence indicative
of at least one parameter of the immersant such as flow or temperature.
Optical transmitters illuminate the immersant slicewise, and optical
receptors receive the fluorescence in order to generate a
three-dimensional map of the parameter over time. A processor
back-calculates one or more characteristics of an acoustic beam that
results in the map. The processor initially generates a behavior model of
an acoustic beam propagating in the immersant by utilizing initial
guesses for the characteristics. The initial guess model is compared to
the map, and an optimization routine is used to refine the initial
guesses. The process repeats iteratively with refined guesses until the
difference between the model and the map is minimized.