Picker International, Inc.

Mike M Tesic

Richard A Sones

James F Vidmar

Gary T Barnes

Karen L Lauro

Victor C Chen

A digital scan projection radiography system is disclosed which is particularly adapted for the rigors of portable deployment. The system scans by gravity. A cam mechanism is employed which raises the pivot of a pivotally suspended scanner assembly including source, detector and other components to render gravitational potential energy of the scanner assembly approximately linear with respect to angular scanning displacement. This feature enables limiting scanning angular velocity to an approximately constant value with the aid of only a friction brake. The feature also causes the detector scanning path to more closely approximate a linear path than an arcuate path which would result from simple pivotal pendulum scanning.

Gravity actuated X-ray scanner

A system and method is disclosed for utilizing image pixel value information generated by a digital radiographic system for quantifying the amount of calcium in a particular object of interest within a subject, wherein the subject also contains additional quantities of calcium located at positions such that the additional calcium interfers with the acquisition of data describing the object of interest. A cursor configured as a parallelogram is described and pixel values are summed along lines parallel to the sides of the parallelogram. A profile is generated from these summations. A portion of the profile corresponding to pixel lines not intersecting the object of interest is used to estimate the contribution of background and other calcium to the profile as a whole, and this estimated value is subtracted from the total profile. Integration of the remainder of the profile provides a scalar value corresponding to the amount of calcium in the object of interest.

Substance quantification in animal bodies

A digital radiographic system and method is disclosed having improved detector resolution. The system includes an X-ray source and a spaced detector assembly having several staggered columns of uniform square detector elements. The detector elements are thus arranged in interspersed rows with the center-to-center spacing between successive members of each row being about twice the lateral dimension of each square element. In response to incident X-radiation, each detector element produces an electrical charge signal indicative of the radiation. Power means actuates the source to propagate X-ray energy in a beam along a path toward the detector assembly, in which path a subject may be interposed for examination. Mechanism is provided for scanning the detector assembly, synchronously and in alignment with the X-ray beam, relative to a subject. The relative scanning motion is perpendicular to the columns of detector elements. Time delay and integrate circuitry is provided, separate from but coupled to the detector elements. Detector element electrical signals are sampled at successive increments of scanning motion equal to half the width of a detector element. Respective delay circuitry built into the time delay and integrate circuitry delays element output signals differently as a function of detector element spacing and sampling frequency, in order to superimpose data for each respective image pixel and to present all signals relating to each respective pixel simultaneously to a summing output for imaging.

Digital radiography detector resolution improvement

A medical diagnostic apparatus (A) generates medical diagnostic data which is reconstructed by an imager (B) into an electronic image representation. The electronic image representation includes an array of digital pixel values which represent a gray scale intensity of a man-readable image displayed on a video monitor (62). An image improving circuit (C) replaces each pixel value I(i,j) with an improved pixel value I'(i,j) defined as follows:

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Cleveland, OH, United States of America

Mike M Tesic