Three-dimensional tomography reconstruction pipeline

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) density volume of an object is constructed from tomography images (e.g., x-ray images) of the object. The tomography images are projection images that capture all structures of an object (e.g., human body) between a beam source and imaging sensor. The beam effectively integrates along a path through the object producing a tomography image at the imaging sensor, where each pixel represents attenuation. A 3D reconstruction pipeline includes a first neural network model, a fixed function backprojection unit, and a second neural network model. Given information for the capture environment, the tomography images are processed by the reconstruction pipeline to produce a reconstructed 3D density volume of the object. In contrast with a set of 2D slices, the entire 3D density volume is reconstructed, so two-dimensional (2D) density images may be produced by slicing through any portion of the 3D density volume at any angle.