Other

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc.

Inkbit, LLC

Pme IP Australia Pty Ltd

Berman, Ari Peter

Ari Peter Berman

Scott A Thieret

Joseph Goddard

Wojciech Matusik

Valeri Kotlov

Daniel Naar

A method comprises using a three-dimensional additive manufacturing process to produce an interlocking volume, wherein using the additive manufacturing process includes depositing successive layers, each of which includes a first material distributed according to a first interlocking material pattern and a second material distributed according to a second interlocking material pattern, said second material differing from said first material.

Material interlocking

A new system for and a method of deploying a heat exchanger pipe. A bore hole is drilled from an access ditch location to a terminal ditch location using a piloted drill head powered via an umbilical attached to the piloted drill head. A casing is attached to the piloted drill head and disposed about the umbilical into the bore hole from the access ditch location to the terminal ditch location. At the terminal ditch location, the piloted drill head is removed from the casing and the umbilical and a heat exchanger pipe is attached to the umbilical. The umbilical is withdrawn from within the casing deployed in the bore hole to pull the heat exchanger pipe into the casing. The casing is then withdrawn from the bore hole leaving the heat exchanger pipe in the bore hole.

Method of deploying a heat exchanger pipe

The disclosure relates generally to a method of three dimensional (3D) tomographic volume reconstruction for computed tomography (CT) using vector processors and more specifically to an optimized implementation which pre-computes back projection weights and perspective geometry data associated with a given CT device as down-sampled tables. The down-sampled perspective geometry data and the weight table are interpolated dynamically as part of the volume reconstruction process for an object scanned using the given CT device.

Optimized implementation of back projection for computed tomography (CT)

The invention provides in one aspect methods and apparatus for use with C-arm and other CT systems, e.g., with non-rigid geometries. In such systems, by way of example, calibration can be performed to determine the exact position of the x-ray source and the exact orientation of the detector where each projection measurement is made. Next, a weighting coefficient can be determined for the voxels in each plane of a reconstruction volume at every possible projection. Finally, the order in which to process the voxels during image reconstruction can be determined. Following an actual CT scan procedure in which scans are obtained of a volume to be constructed, a system according to these and related aspects of the invention can use an optimal, pre-calculated processing method, while utilizing offsets and weighting coefficients determined during calibration, for performing backprojection image reconstruction.

Method of reconstructing computed tomography (CT) volumes suitable for execution on commodity central processing units (CPUS) and graphics processors, and apparatus operating in accord with those methods (rotational X-ray on GPUs)

Method of reconstructing computed tomography (CT) volumes suitable for execution on commodity central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processors, and apparatus operating in accord with those methods (rotational X-ray on GPUs)

The invention provides improvements in reconstructive imaging of the type in which a volume is reconstructed from a series of measured projection images (or other two-dimensional representations) generated by projection of a point x-ray source (or other radiation source), positioned at a distinct focus, through the volume to a plane at which the respective projection image is acquired ('detector plane'). In one aspect, the improvements are with respect to back-projecting a two-dimensional representation lying in the detector plane (representing, for example, a difference between an originally-acquired measured projection image and a subsequently-generated estimate thereof) to generate three-dimensional representation (which can be used, for example, to update an estimate of the volume). According to this aspect, for each of one or more slices of the 3D representation parallel to the projection plane and for each distinct focus at which a projection is generated, the following steps are performed in connection with the back-projection: (i) warping the first 2D representation to generate a second 2D representation by applying to the first 2D representation a selected linear mapping, where that selected linear mapping would map, in order to match dimensions of the respective slice within the 3D representation, a region defined by projection, at the respective focus, of corners of that slice onto the detector plane, and (ii) incrementing values of each of one or more voxels of the respective slice by an amount that is a function of a value of a correspondingly indexed pixel of the second 2D representation. A related aspect provides improvements with respect to forward-projecting, as well as in iterative (and non-iterative) methodologies that incorporate both back-projection and forward-projection.

Growing community of inventors

Lexington, MA, United States of America

Ari Peter Berman