CONE BEAM SCANNING TRAJECTORIES FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY DATA ACQUISITION WHERE OBJECT IS LARGER THAN THE FIELD OF VIEW

摘要

A configuration for three-dimensional cone beam computerized tomography imaging which minimizes the incompleteness of the data set and, at the same time, avoids corrupted data and resulting artifacts when only a portion of an object (58) is imaged, the object being of greater axial extent compared to a cylindrical field of view (50). At least two circular source scanning trajectories are defined centered on a rotation axis (52) and lying respectively in two endplanes (54, 56) defining the axial extent of the field of view. At least one cone beam x-ray source (60) and at least one corresponding two-dimensional array detector (62) are employed to scan the object along the source scanning trajectories (80), while acquiring cone beam projection data only from rays passing through the field of view. Preferably, at least one additional circular source scanning trajectory is defined, centered on the rotation axis (52) and lying in a plane intermediate the two endplanes.