Spiral scan long object reconstruction through PI line reconstruction.

The response of a point object in a cone beam (CB) spiral scan is analysed. Based on the result, a reconstruction algorithm for long object imaging in spiral scan cone beam CT is developed. A region-of-interest (ROI) of the long object is scanned with a detector smaller than the ROI, and a portion of it can be reconstructed without contamination from overlaying materials. The top and bottom surfaces of the ROI are defined by two sets of PI lines near the two ends of the spiral path. With this novel definition of the top and bottom ROI surfaces and through the use of projective geometry, it is straightforward to partition the cone beam image into regions corresponding to projections of the ROI, the overlaying objects or both. This also simplifies computation at source positions near the spiral ends, and makes it possible to reduce radiation exposure near the spiral ends substantially through simple hardware collimation. Simulation results to validate the algorithm are presented.