The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 24, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 25, 1998
Zhongmin Lin, Twinsburg, OH (US);
Leonard F. Plut, Mentor, OH (US);
Timothy J. Crish, Strongsville, OH (US);
Picker International, Inc., Highland Heights, OH (US);
Abstract
An object (,) is positioned on an object support (,). A radiation source (,) projects a beam of radiation through a region of interest (,) of the object. A plurality of focal planes (F,, F,, . . . , F,) mark the center of selected slice images through the region of interest. A gantry (,) rotates the radiation source (,) around a circular trajectory (,) as an encoder (,) monitors a radius (r) of the trajectory and an angular position (&phgr;) of the radiation source (,) around the trajectory (,). A look-up table (,) is addressed with the selected focal plane(s) (F,, F,, . . . , F,) and (r, &phgr;) to generate a correction or shift value (S,, . . . , S,.) for each selected focal plane (F,, F,, . . . , F,). A flat panel detector (,) is read out a plurality of times to generate a plurality of electronic data views as the radiation source rotates. Each view is corrected with a corresponding correction or shift value and integrated in a summation circuit (,) with preceding views to generate an image representation of the slice(s) through the selected focal plane(s) (F,, F,, . . . , F,) or a 3D volume. The slice image or 3D volume image representation is converted into a human-readable display (,) substantially in real-time, e.g., each time a preselected number of views has been summed.