A computed tomography implementation of multiple-image radiography

Abstract

Conventional x-ray computed tomography (CT) produces a single volumetric image that represents the spatially variant linear x-ray attenuation coefficient of an object. However, in many situations, differences in the x-ray attenuation properties of soft tissues are very small and difficult to measure in conventional x-ray imaging. In this work, we investigate an analyzer-based imaging method, called computed tomography multiple-image radiography (CT-MIR), which is a tomographic implementation of the recently proposed multiple-image radiography method. The CT-MIR method reconstructs concurrently three physical properties of the object. In addition to x-ray attenuation, CT-MIR produces volumetric images that represent the refraction and ultrasmall-angle scattering properties of the object. These three images can provide a rich description of the object's physical properties that are revealed by the probing x-ray beam. An imaging model for CT-MIR that is based on the x-ray transform of the object properties is established. The CT-MIR method is demonstrated by use of experimental data acquired at a synchroton radiation imaging beamline, and is compared to the pre-existing diffraction-enhanced imaging CT method. We also investigate the merit of an iterative reconstruction method for use with future clinical implementations of CT-MIR, which we anticipate would be photon limited.