title: 3D analytic cone-beam reconstruction for multiaxial CT acquisitions.
abstract: A conventional 3rd generation Computed Tomography (CT) system with a single circular source trajectory is limited in terms of longitudinal scan coverage since extending the scan coverage beyond 40 mm results in significant cone-beam artifacts. A multiaxial CT acquisition is achieved by combining multiple sequential 3rd generation axial scans or by performing a single axial multisource CT scan with multiple longitudinally offset sources. Data from multiple axial scans or multiple sources provide complementary information. For full-scan acquisitions, we present a window-based 3D analytic cone-beam reconstruction algorithm by tessellating data from neighboring axial datasets. We also show that multi-axial CT acquisition can extend the axial scan coverage while minimizing cone-beam artifacts. For half-scan acquisitions, one cannot take advantage of conjugate rays. We propose a cone-angle dependent weighting approach to combine multi-axial half-scan data. We compute the relative contribution from each axial dataset to each voxel based on the X-ray beam collimation, the respective cone-angles, and the spacing between the axial scans. We present numerical experiments to demonstrate that the proposed techniques successfully reduce cone-beam artifacts at very large volumetric coverage.
authors.affiliation: CT and Xray systems and applications laboratory, GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY 12309, USA.
authors.forename: Zhye
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: De Man
authors.forename: Jed
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pack