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Talbot‐Lau X‐ray phase contrast for tiling‐based acquisitions without reference scanning
Author(s) -
Kaeppler Sebastian,
Seifert Maria,
Horn Florian,
Pelzer Georg,
Rieger Jens,
Michel Thilo,
Maier Andreas,
Anton Gisela,
Riess Christian
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1002/mp.12200
Subject(s) - computer science , computer vision , contrast (vision) , phase (matter) , reference data , reference frame , reference beam , image quality , artificial intelligence , reference model , object (grammar) , optics , physics , image (mathematics) , interferometry , frame (networking) , data mining , telecommunications , software engineering , quantum mechanics
Purpose Grating‐based Talbot‐Lau interferometers are a popular choice for phase‐contrast X‐ray acquisitions. Here, an air reference scan has to be acquired prior to an object scan. This particularly complicates acquisition of large objects: large objects are tiled into multiple scans due to the small field of view of current gratings. However, phase reference drifts occurring between these scans may require to repeatedly move the object in and out of the X‐ray beam to update the reference information. Methods We developed an image processing technique that completely removes the need for phase reference scans in tiled acquisitions. We estimate the reference from object scans using a tailored iterated robust regression, using a novel efficient optimizer. Results Our evaluation indicates that the estimated reference is not only close to the acquired reference but also improves the final image quality. We hypothesize that this is because we mitigate errors that are introduced when actually acquiring the reference phase. Conclusion Phase‐contrast imaging of larger objects may benefit from computational estimation of phase reference data due to reduced scanning complexity and improved image quality.