Adaptive zooming in X-ray computed tomography.

BACKGROUND In computed tomography (CT), the source-detector system commonly rotates around the object in a circular trajectory. Such a trajectory does not allow to exploit a detector fully when scanning elongated objects. OBJECTIVE Increase the spatial resolution of the reconstructed image by optimal zooming during scanning. METHODS A new approach is proposed, in which the full width of the detector is exploited for every projection angle. This approach is based on the use of prior information about the object's convex hull to move the source as close as possible to the object, while avoiding truncation of the projections. RESULTS Experiments show that the proposed approach can significantly improve reconstruction quality, producing reconstructions with smaller errors and revealing more details in the object. CONCLUSIONS The proposed approach can lead to more accurate reconstructions and increased spatial resolution in the object compared to the conventional circular trajectory.