Diffraction tomography systems and methods are disclosed for the reconstruction of physical properties of two and three-dimensional objects from information collected in one or more diffraction tomographic procedures. A diffraction tomographic system is comprised of a continuous or pulsed source of wave energy, a detecting system for the measurement of the amplitude and/or phase of the scattered field resulting from the wave energy interacting with a two or three-dimensional object, a processing and filtering system for processing and filtering the measured signals according to a filtered backpropagation technique thereby generating arrays which are used to reconstruct the object properties, and a graphics display system for displaying obtained reconstructions. Specific embodiments include ultrasound transmission computed tomography; well-to-well electromagnetic and sonic tomography; subsurface electromagnetic or seismic exploration; and X-ray transmission tomography. The methods and systems apply filtered backpropagation techniques which are generalizations of the filtered backprojection technique of X-ray computed tomography to cases where diffraction of the insonifying beam is taken into consideration.
