<p>Contemporary algorithms employed for reconstruction of 3D volumes from helical cone beam projections are so called non-exact algorithms. This means that the reconstructed volumes contain artifacts irrespective of the detector resolution and number of projection angles employed in the process. In this thesis, three iterative schemes for suppression of these so called cone artifacts are investigated.</p><p>The first scheme, iterative weighted filtered backprojection (IWFBP), is based on iterative application of a non-exact algorithm. For this method, artifact reduction, as well as spatial resolution and noise properties are measured. During the first five iterations, cone artifacts are clearly reduced. As a side effect, spatial resolution and noise are increased. To avoid this side effect and improve the convergence properties, a regularization procedure is proposed and evaluated.</p><p>In order to reduce the cost of the IWBP scheme, a second scheme is created by combining IWFBP with the so called ordered subsets technique, which we call OSIWFBP. This method divides the projection data set into subsets, and operates sequentially on each of these in a certain order, hence the name “ordered subsets”. We investigate two different ordering schemes and number of subsets, as well as the possibility to accelerate cone artifact suppression. The main conclusion is that the ordered subsets technique indeed reduces the number of iterations needed, but that it suffers from the drawback of noise amplification.</p><p>The third scheme starts by dividing input data into high- and low-frequency data, followed by non-iterative reconstruction of the high-frequency part and IWFBP reconstruction of the low-frequency part. This could open for acceleration by reduction of data in the iterative part. The results show that a suppression of artifacts similar to that of the IWFBP method can be obtained, even if a significant part of high-frequency data is non-iteratively reconstructed.</p>

Contemporary algorithms employed for reconstruction of 3D volumes from helical cone beam projections are so called non-exact algorithms. This means that the reconstructed volumes contain artifacts irrespective of the detector resolution and number of projection angles employed in the process. In this thesis, three iterative schemes for suppression of these so called cone artifacts are investigated. The first scheme, iterative weighted filtered backprojection (IWFBP), is based on iterative application of a non-exact algorithm. For this method, artifact reduction, as well as spatial resolution and noise properties are measured. During the first five iterations, cone artifacts are clearly reduced. As a side effect, spatial resolution and noise are increased. To avoid this side effect and improve the convergence properties, a regularization procedure is proposed and evaluated. In order to reduce the cost of the IWBP scheme, a second scheme is created by combining IWFBP with the so called ordered subsets technique, which we call OSIWFBP. This method divides the projection data set into subsets, and operates sequentially on each of these in a certain order, hence the name “ordered subsets”. We investigate two different ordering schemes and number of subsets, as well as the possibility to accelerate cone artifact suppression. The main conclusion is that the ordered subsets technique indeed reduces the number of iterations needed, but that it suffers from the drawback of noise amplification. The third scheme starts by dividing input data into high- and low-frequency data, followed by non-iterative reconstruction of the high-frequency part and IWFBP reconstruction of the low-frequency part. This could open for acceleration by reduction of data in the iterative part. The results show that a suppression of artifacts similar to that of the IWFBP method can be obtained, even if a significant part of high-frequency data is non-iteratively reconstructed.

<p>Contemporary algorithms employed for reconstruction of 3D volumes from helical cone beam projections are so called non-exact algorithms. This means that the reconstructed volumes will contain artifacts irrespective of the detector resolution and number of projections angles employed in the process.</p><p>It has been proposed that these artifacts can be suppressed using an iterative scheme which comprises computation of projections from the already reconstructed volume as well as the non-exact reconstruction itself.</p><p>The purpose of the present work is to examine if the iterative scheme can be applied to the non-exact reconstruction method PI-original in order to improve the reconstruction result. An important part in this implementation is a careful design of the projection operator, as a poorly designed projection operator may result in aliasing and/or other artifacts in the reconstruction result. Since the projection data is truncated, special care must be taken along the boundaries of the detector. Three different ways of handling this interpolation problem is proposed and examined.</p><p>The results show that artifacts caused by the PI-original method can indeed be reduced by the iterative scheme. However, each iteration requires at least three times more processing time than the initial reconstruction, which may call for certain compromises, smartness and/or parallelization in the innermost loops. Furthermore, at higher cone angles certain types of artifacts seem to grow by each iteration instead of being suppressed.</p>

Contemporary algorithms employed for reconstruction of 3D volumes from helical cone beam projections are so called non-exact algorithms. This means that the reconstructed volumes will contain artifacts irrespective of the detector resolution and number of projections angles employed in the process. It has been proposed that these artifacts can be suppressed using an iterative scheme which comprises computation of projections from the already reconstructed volume as well as the non-exact reconstruction itself. The purpose of the present work is to examine if the iterative scheme can be applied to the non-exact reconstruction method PI-original in order to improve the reconstruction result. An important part in this implementation is a careful design of the projection operator, as a poorly designed projection operator may result in aliasing and/or other artifacts in the reconstruction result. Since the projection data is truncated, special care must be taken along the boundaries of the detector. Three different ways of handling this interpolation problem is proposed and examined. The results show that artifacts caused by the PI-original method can indeed be reduced by the iterative scheme. However, each iteration requires at least three times more processing time than the initial reconstruction, which may call for certain compromises, smartness and/or parallelization in the innermost loops. Furthermore, at higher cone angles certain types of artifacts seem to grow by each iteration instead of being suppressed.