Smooth manifold extraction for 2D synthetic radiography using 2D CNT array-based DTS system

Abstract

2D synthetic radiography image can be computed from quasi-3D volume image produced by digital tomosynthesis (DTS) module negating additional radiation exposure for a separate 2D X-ray imaging. In our earlier work, we have developed a prototype DTS system that is equipped with an array of carbon-nanotube (CNT) X-ray sources. In this work, we develop an algorithm for synthesizing 2D image from the DTS-reconstructed volume image in the source array-based DTS system. Since the system uses a 2D array type source, the image artifacts due to the out-of-plane structures manifest relatively uniformly in all directions in the image slice unlike typical tomosynthesis systems. We have developed a smooth-manifold-extraction (SME) based method, which has been used in the field of confocal microscopy, for 2D image synthesis. Unlike microscopy, high-density structures exist at varying depths in a human body. Therefore, the SME algorithm was modified to apply to our DTS system.