Abstract
Tomosynthesis is widely used for three-dimensional reconstruction of objects acquired from limited angle X-ray projection imaging with stationary digital detector. Traditionally, the point-spread function (PSF) in digital tomosynthesis is assumed to be symmetrical with respect to the central axis and shift invariant. The purpose of this research is to characterize the true nature of the PSF by intensity and shape considerations. We assumed that tomosynthesis PSF depended on the imaging geometry and the reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, we describe PSF characterization with respect to the linear geometry and back projection reconstruction. We considered the following parameters: source to image distance (SID) (mm), total number of slices reconstructed after reconstruction, distance (in z-direction) from the first and the last slice to the detector (mm), resolution in X, Y & Z (pix/mm), and total number of projections. Using these parameters, we determined the PSF at every location of the reconstructed volume. The PSF was contained in the plane formed by the linear source trajectory and the point under consideration that extended through all the slices. The results show that the PSF is shift variant and unique at every location and gradually changing over the entire reconstructed volume. The shift from the central axis and central reconstructed slice caused the PSF to exhibit shear corresponding to the X-shift, tilt with the Y-shift and asymmetry with the Z-shift. In summary, we have characterized tomosynthesis PSF to be globally shift variant exhibiting shear, tilt and asymmetry.
