Computed Tomography References The Essential Physics of Medical Imaging 2nd edn. Bushberg J.T. et.al Computed Tomography 2nd edn : Seeram Physics of Radiology : Wolboarst A.B. COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY Invented by Godfrey Hounsfield in 1971 Won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979 shared with Alan Cormack Alan Cormack developed the image reconstruction method in CT Radon developed the mathematical principles of CT in 1917 Computed Tomography Produces a cross sectional image of linear attenuation coefficients of a slice of tissue by measuring the transmitted x-ray intensity through the slice ( x , y ) l ( x , y ) I t I 0e Hounsfield Scanner 160 measurements during translation 180 angular positions Image size = 80x80 = 6400 unknowns Number of equations = 160x180=28800 Number of equations > Number of unknowns, Solution is possible Tomographic Reconstruction Methods Filteredback Projection Method Direct Fourier Transform Method Iteration Method Back Projection Method Projection elements are divided uniformly amongst pixels in projection path Non zero activity outside the true location of the object Filtered Back Projection Acquire projection profiles at N projection angles Do 1D FT of each profile Filter each k space profile Inverse FT each filtered profile to obtain filtered profile in space domain Back project the filtered profile FBP is the most widely used reconstruction method in CT Image reconstruction Filtered back projection of the data corresponding to a single slice produces the image of that slice. Repeating the above procedure for all slices gives the 3D image.