Basis Functions in Image Reconstruction From Projections: A Tutorial Introduction

Abstract

The series expansion approaches to image reconstruction from projections assume that the object to be reconstructed can be represented as a linear combination of fixed basis functions and the task of the reconstruction algorithm is to estimate the coefficients in such a linear combination based on the measured projection data. It is demonstrated that using spherically symmetric basis functions (blobs), instead of ones based on the more traditional pixels, yields superior reconstructions of medically relevant objects. The demonstration uses simulated computerized tomography projection data of head cross-sections and the series expansion method ART for the reconstruction. In addition to showing the results of one anecdotal example, the relative efficacy of using pixel and blob basis functions in image reconstruction from projections is also evaluated using a statistical hypothesis testing based task oriented comparison methodology. The superiority of the efficacy of blob basis functions over that of pixel basis function is found to be statistically significant.