Cone-beam reconstruction of flat specimens in a super-short scan.

In many applications of circular cone-beam computed tomography (CT), it is common that the reconstructed specimens are plate-like. In this paper, a novel method is presented to reconstruct plate-like specimens in a super-short scan, thus reducing imaging time and increasing practical CT system throughput. The algorithm of the proposed method is an improved backprojection-filtration (BPF) algorithm using an integral operator with a fixed integral interval. The results of numerical simulation and real data reconstructions show that the proposed method is a good choice for reconstructions of plate-like specimens, because not only can it yield images with a quality comparable to those obtained with existing algorithms, but it can also reduce imaging time and increase CT system throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]