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7, 1323, 2001
DOI: 10.1007/s100050010053
Microscopy
Microanalysis
AND
Advanced Microscopy and Imaging Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering, State University of New York at
Buffalo, 315 Bonner Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
2
Department of Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242
Abstract: Cone-beam X-ray microtomography attracts increasing attention due to its applications in biomedical sciences, material engineering, and industrial nondestructive evaluation. Rapid volumetric image reconstruction is highly desirable in all these areas for prompt visualization and analysis of complex structures of
interest. In this article, we reformulate a generalized Feldkamp cone-beam image reconstruction algorithm,
utilize curved voxels and mapping tables, improve the reconstruction efficiency by an order of magnitude
relative to a direct implementation of the standard algorithm, and demonstrate the feasibility with numerical
simulation and experiments using a prototype cone-beam X-ray microtomographic system. Our fast algorithm
reconstructs a 256-voxel cube from 100 projections within 2 min on an Intel Pentium II 233 MHz personal
computer, produces satisfactory image quality, and can be further accelerated using special hardware and/or
parallel processing techniques.
Key words: X-ray computed tomography, cone-beam, microtomography, image reconstruction, real-time,
nondestructive evaluation
I NTRODUCTION
Due to its penetration ability and contrast mechanism,
cone-beam X-ray microtomography is a powerful tool in
studies on 3D microstructures of opaque specimens in biological, medical, material, and industrial applications (Russ,
1988; Kinney et al., 1989; Cheng et al., 1991; Pan et al., 1997;
Wang et al., 1999). With an X-ray point source and a 2Ddetector array, X-rays intersecting a spherical specimen
form a cone, giving rise to the nomenclature cone-beam.
Compared to parallel-beam or fan-beam approaches, the
cone-beam geometry is beneficial for faster data collection,
Received January 11, 1999; accepted June 13, 2000.
*Corresponding author
14
M ATERIALS
AND
M ETHODS
1
gx,y,z =
2
D2
D s Rp,,
2
h q p
D2 + p2 + 2
dpd,
(1)
Dz
Ds
Dt
q=
Ds
=
(2)
x cos ysin
st==xsin
ycos ,
(3)
as illustrated in Figure 3.
The generalized Feldkamp reconstruction can be divided into the following three steps:
1. Obtain weighted projection data
Rp,, =
D2 + p2 + 2
Rp,,,
(4)
(5)
gx,y,z =
D
2 Qq,, d.
2D s
(6)
Our first cone-beam image reconstruction software was directly based on a discrete version of the above formulas to
test the feasibility and provide the gold standard.
gx,y,z =
WsQAt,s,Az,s, ,
1
l=1
(7)
where x,y and z are defined only at finitely many prespecified locations (a regular 3D Cartesian grid), t and s depend
on x and y,
Ws =
and
D2
2D s2 ,
(8)
Au,s =
Du
Ds
(9)
Computational Complexity
We use a Pentium II 233MHz computer under Windows
NT 4.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2. Table 1 lists the
central processing unit (CPU) time in seconds for each of
Short
integer
Float
Double
Sin
Cos
Index
0.778
2.564
3.447
1.798
2.314
4.713
2.937
7.272
4.480
NA
37.067
NA
NA
42.203
NA
1.313
0.904
1.059
fast reconstruction schemes improve the computational efficiency by more than 22 times.
R ESULTS
Our earlier standard software for generalized Feldkamp reconstruction was used as the reference, and modified to
implement the fast reconstruction techniques described
above. The programs were coded in Microsoft Visual C++
4.2, and tested on an Intel Pentium II 233 CPU installed
on a Gigabyte 686LX2 motherboard with 128 megabyte
SDRAM under NT 4.0. Nearest neighbor interpolation
was applied whenever interpolation was needed. Both numerical simulation and physical experiments were performed to refine reconstruction parameters and verify programs.
A point X-ray source, point detectors, and circular
scanning were assumed. The source-to-origin distance was
set to 6 cm. The image volume to be reconstructed was
assumed to be a 256-voxel cube. The detector plane was 2.2
by 2.2 cm with 256 by 256 detectors, and for the ease of
computation it was scaled to pass through the z-axis of the
reconstruction coordinate system. Specifically, the detector
plane was so placed that its center is at the origin of the
xyz system, its horizontal axis p stays in the xy plane,
and its vertical axis was superimposed upon the z-axis. A
3D version of Shepp and Logans (1974) head phantom was
used as the testing object. One hundred cone-beam projections with a 3.6 angular interval were used for the reconstruction. Cone-beam projection data were synthesized
based on analytically derived formulas.
This phantom was reconstructed using both our direct
implementation of the generalized Feldkamp algorithm and
the table mapping-based software to evaluate effects of reconstruction parameters on image quality. As mentioned in
D ISCUSSION
AND
C ONCLUSIONS
Table 2. Relative Time Consumed by the Direct Implementation of the Generalized Feldkamp Reconstruction and the Accelerated
Implementation for a 256-Voxel Cube from 100 Cone-beam Projections, Keyed to Each of Basic Operations
Basic operation
Operation
Direct implementation
Relative time per instruction
+
2.564
2.314
/
7.272
Sin
37.067
Cos
42.203
Index
0.904
Total relative time
Mapping implementation
Instruction no.
Relative time
Instruction no.
4
9
3
2
2
1
209.778
10.256
20.826
21.816
74.134
84.406
0.904
1
1
0
0
0
5
9.398
Relative time
2.564
2.314
0
0
0
4.520
Figure 9. Comparison of
reconstructed image quality for
slice z = 0.25. a: The image
reconstructed using our direct
implementation of the
generalized Feldkamp
reconstruction; b: the
counterpart using our
table-mapping algorithm.
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Mr. W. Schulze for excellent machining
work, Mr. C. Shen for technical assistance, and Dr. Carl
Crawford for helpful discussion. This project was supported
in part by the Academic Development Fund of the State
University of New York.
R EFERENCES
Cheng PC, Lin TH, Shinozaki DM, Newberry SP (1991) Projection
microscopy and microtomography using X-rays. J Scanning Microsc 13(I):1011
Feldkamp LA, Davis LC, Kress JW (1984) Practical cone-beam
algorithm. J Opt Soc Am 1:612619
Gullberg GT, Hsieh YL, Zeng LG (1996) An SVD reconstruction
algorithm using a natural pixel representation of the attenuated
Radon transform. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 43:295303
He YJ, Chi A, Sun JA (1993) Increment backprojection algorithm:
modification of the searching flow scheme and utilization of the
Russ JC (1988) Differential absorption three-dimensional microtomography. Trans Am Nucl Soc 56:14