Analytic evaluation of depths of dose calculation points for external beam radiation therapy treatment planning.
A method has been developed to calculate the depth of a point in a patient contour analytically. In this method, the patient contour is approximated by a Fourier series comprising 5-10 terms. The depth of a calculation point is the distance between the calculation point and the intersection of the ray line with the contour line. Depth calculations using this method are compared with calculations using a more conventional method in which the intersection is found by representing the contour as a set of straight-line segments between pairs of contour points. This method gives depth values comparable in accuracy to the more conventional method and computed approximately twice as fast.
D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D012984:Software; D013223:Statistics as Topic