Network tomography is the study of a network's internal characteristics using information derived from end point data. The word tomography is used to link the field, in concept, to other processes that infer the internal characteristics of an object from external observation, as is done in MRI or PET scanning (even though the term tomography strictly refers to imaging by slicing). The field is a recent development in electrical engineering and computer science, dating from 1996. Network tomography seeks to map the path data takes through the Internet by examining information from “edge nodes,” the computers in which the data are originated and from which they are requested.