We propose and implement three-dimensional (3-D) ring-scanning equipment for near-infrared (NIR) diffuse optical imaging to screen breast tumors under prostrating examination. This equipment has the function of the radial, circular, and vertical motion without compression of breast tissue, thereby achieving 3-D scanning; furthermore, a flexible combination of illumination and detection can be configured for the required resolution. Especially, a rotation-sliding-and-moving mechanism was designed for the guidance of source-and detectionchannel motion. Prior to machining and construction of the system, a synthesized image reconstruction was simulated to show the feasibility of this 3-D NIR ring-scanning equipment; finally, this equipment is verified by performing phantom experiments. Rather than the fixed configuration, this addressed screening/diagnosing equipment has the flexibilities of optical-channel expansion for spatial resolution and the dimensional freedom for scanning in reconstructing optical-property images. Downloaded From: http://opticalengineering.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 08/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedigitallibrary.org/ss/TermsOfUse.aspx d DC, direct current NIR; FD, frequency domain (or amplitude modulated) NIR; TD, time domain (or pulsed) NIR. Optical Engineering 073107-2 July 2015 • Vol. 54(7) Yu et al.: Design and implementation of three-dimensional ring-scanning equipment for optimized. . . Downloaded From: http://opticalengineering.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 08/17/2015 Terms of Use: http://spiedigitallibrary.org/ss/TermsOfUse.aspx