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:
Dec. 17, 2002
Filed:
Jan. 22, 2001
Kevin E. Wilson, Waltham, MA (US);
Jay A. Stein, Boston, MA (US);
Richard Cabral, Tewksbury, MA (US);
Andrew P. Smith, Medford, MA (US);
Vinnie Quinn, Bedford, MA (US);
Hologic, Inc., Bedford, MA (US);
Abstract
An x-ray system using a slot-shaped detector having n rows and m columns of pixels, where n<<m, and providing a variety of relative motions between a patient table and a source-detector unit, including translation along the length of the table, translation across the table, and rotation about the focal spot, and processing the pixel values in a variety of ways to produce information such a shadow graphic x-ray images, tomosynthetic images of surfaces that need not be planar, and bone density estimates. In another embodiment, tomographic images can be obtained directly, using a post-patient collimator that passes nearly all of the primary beam to the imager while eliminating nearly all of the scatter. A feedback loop can equalize the exposure for selected parts of the image substantially in real time.