Development of a Beam Hardening CorrectionMethod for a microCT Scanner Prototype

摘要

The radiographic projections acquired with a microCT were simulated and then corrected for beam hardening effects using the linearized signal to equivalent thickness (LSET) method. This procedure requires a calibration signal for each pixel obtained from a set of images with filters of increasing thickness. The projections are corrected by converting the signal to an equivalent thickness using interpolation over the calibration images. The method was validated using simulated projections of different phantoms. Two calibration sets were simulated using aluminum and water filters of thicknesses ranging from 0 to 5 mm and from 0 to 50 mm, respectively. A simulation of the phantoms' projections using a monoenergetic beam was also obtained to establish the relative intensity on the tomographic images when no cupping artifacts are present. Comparison between corrected and uncorrected tomographic images shows that the LSET method effectively corrects the cupping artifact. Streaking artifacts correction with the LSET method shows better results than with the traditional water correction method. Results are independent of the two calibration materials used.