Phase unwrapping by blocks

A method of 2-dimensional phase-unwrapping by blocks is presented in this paper. This method combines the advantages of both conventional phase-unwrapping algorithm and cellular-automata unwrapping algorithm. With this concept, a fast, robust and stable phase unwrapping for phase maps of different sizes can be achieved by utilising different algorithms for different conditions. A criterion is described for judging whether a period-two oscillatory state is reached by local iterations. In addition, a phase dislocation masking method is described in this paper, which can be used to detect and clean large dislocations, improving the rms values of signal-to-noise ratio in unwrapped phase maps.