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.
This can potentially help isolate links with large queueing delays caused by congestion.
In comparison, other network topology discovery techniques using SNMP or route analytics aim for greater accuracy with less emphasis on overhead reduction.
Network tomography may find links which are shared by multiple paths (and can thus become potential bottlenecks in the future).