CT Reconstruction from Simultaneous Projections: A Step towards Capturing CT in One Go

Abstract

This paper focuses on minimizing the time requirement for CT capture through innovative simultaneous x-ray capture method. The state-of-the-art CT imaging methodology captures a sequence of projections during which the internal organ movements may lead to poor reconstruction due to motion artefacts. Traditional CT scanners' minimize such effect by taking more projections than necessary. In this work we focus on an innovative CT capture method that captures projections simultaneously, promising super fast scans along with possible radiation dose reductions. While the simultaneous CT capture model has already been proposed in our earlier work 'Multi-axial CT Reconstruction from Few View Projections' (in SPIE Optical Engineering and Applications, pp. 85000A-85000A. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2012) and 'A New Imaging Method for Real-time 3D X-ray Reconstruction' (in SPIE Medical Imaging, pp. 86685G-86685G. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2013), in this work we enhance the model through better initialization along with prior smoothing before successive iterations of the iterative algorithms. We also elaborate the model considering different X-ray source/detector configurations. Results show that it is possible reconstruct a cross-section slice by considering only four angular projections. With eight projections, the reconstruction is further improved. The main promising matter about this method is that, all these projections (i.e. four or eight) can in principle be captured simultaneously, implying CT capture in one go just like a chest X-ray.