title: A fast approximation for the calculation of potential distributions in electrical impedance tomography.
abstract: A number of proposed electrical impedance tomography reconstruction algorithms rely on the assumption that the pattern of potentials produced in an unknown conductivity distribution will be similar to that produced in a uniformly conducting object of the same external dimensions. This potential distribution can be calculated from Laplace's equation. A fast approximation to the solution of Laplace's equation is formulated and tested against experimental and computer generated data. Whilst it does not fully converge to the solution, the approximation is shown to be an improvement over the assumption of semi-infinite boundary conditions and to be very much faster than conventional numerical methods.
authors.affiliation: Regional Medical Physics Department, Newcastle General Hospital, UK.
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Kotre
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D014054:Tomography / Q000379:methods*