a) Synthetic column density image of a prolate ellipsoidal core model with an aspect ratio of 1.3 and a Plummer-like density distribution (see Eq. (B.4) and the text for model parameters). The horizontal dotted line shows the axis of symmetry in the plane of sky, and the contour levels are the same as in Fig. 3. b) Comparison between the intrinsic (solid curves) and the reconstructed (crosses) column density profiles of the model. c) Comparison between the intrinsic (solid curves) and the reconstructed (crosses) dust temperature profiles of the model. The blue and red curves represent the intrinsic radial profiles along and perpendicular to the axis of symmetry, respectively. The green curves represent the intrinsic circularly averaged radial profiles. The blue and red crosses display the results of the Abel-inversion method applied to the synthetic 160–500 μm intensity profiles of the model, which are convolved to 363 resolution and taken along the major and minor axes, respectively. The green crosses show the reconstruction results by using the circularly averaged intensity profiles of the model as inputs. Note the good agreement between the reconstructed profiles and the intrinsic profiles beyond the half power beam radius of 363/2, as marked by the vertical dotted line.