A method for examining tissue, the method comprising: maintaining a position for the tissue; insonifying the tissue with a plurality of pulsed spherical or cylindrical acoustic waves emitted from an acoustic transmission element; receiving scattered acoustic radiation from the tissue at an acoustic receiving element, wherein the scattered acoustic radiation includes a mix of reflected and transmitted acoustic waves; and generating a representation of a portion of the tissue from the received scattered acoustic radiation, wherein generating the representation of the portion of the tissue comprises: generating an electrical signal from the received acoustic radiation; and digitizing the electrical signal to provide a digitized signal for a particular transmitter-receiver pair, wherein generating the representation of the portion of the tissue further comprises preprocessing the digitized electrical signal depending upon setup parameters received from a control function, wherein preprocessing the digitized electrical signal comprises determining the time of arrival and the amplitude of a direct coupling pulse, wherein the direct coupling pulse is defined as the acoustic signal that traverses the most direct route from that transmitter to that receiver, removing the direct coupling pulse and retaining the remainder of the time series of data. maintaining a position for the tissue; insonifying the tissue with a plurality of pulsed spherical or cylindrical acoustic waves emitted from an acoustic transmission element; receiving scattered acoustic radiation from the tissue at an acoustic receiving element, wherein the scattered acoustic radiation includes a mix of reflected and transmitted acoustic waves; and generating a representation of a portion of the tissue from the received scattered acoustic radiation, wherein generating the representation of the portion of the tissue comprises: generating an electrical signal from the received acoustic radiation; and digitizing the electrical signal to provide a digitized signal for a particular transmitter-receiver pair, wherein generating the representation of the portion of the tissue further comprises preprocessing the digitized electrical signal depending upon setup parameters received from a control function, wherein preprocessing the digitized electrical signal comprises determining the time of arrival and the amplitude of a direct coupling pulse, wherein the direct coupling pulse is defined as the acoustic signal that traverses the most direct route from that transmitter to that receiver, removing the direct coupling pulse and retaining the remainder of the time series of data. generating an electrical signal from the received acoustic radiation; and digitizing the electrical signal to provide a digitized signal for a particular transmitter-receiver pair, wherein generating the representation of the portion of the tissue further comprises preprocessing the digitized electrical signal depending upon setup parameters received from a control function, wherein preprocessing the digitized electrical signal comprises determining the time of arrival and the amplitude of a direct coupling pulse, wherein the direct coupling pulse is defined as the acoustic signal that traverses the most direct route from that transmitter to that receiver, removing the direct coupling pulse and retaining the remainder of the time series of data.