A system for thermal transient imaging of an object includes a radiation source configured to irradiate the object with radiation in accordance with an excitation profile. An imaging device includes an array of detector pixels and is configured to detect thermal radiation from a surface of the object. A processor is configured to obtain a series of frames of thermal image data of the surface acquired by the imaging device over time when the object is irradiated by the radiation source. The processor is further configured to process, using the excitation profile, the series of frames of thermal image data to transform the thermal image data to an equivalent wave field representation that represents a series of depth-resolved virtual images of the object.
