The system of one embodiment for imaging tissue includes ultrasound emitters configured to surround and emit acoustic waveforms toward the tissue, ultrasound receivers configured to surround and receive acoustic waveforms scattered by the tissue, and a processor configured for determining an observed differential time-of-flight (ToF) dataset and generating an acoustic speed rendering of the tissue based on the observed differential ToF dataset. The method of one embodiment for imaging tissue includes receiving data representative of acoustic waveforms scattered by the tissue, determining an observed differential ToF dataset, performing forward modeling to generate a calculated differential ToF dataset based on an acoustic speed model, performing inverse modeling to generate an acoustic speed model based on the observed and calculated differential ToF datasets, iteratively repeating forward modeling and inverse modeling until convergence is met with a final acoustic speed model, and generating an acoustic speed rendering from the final acoustic speed model.
