Volumetric image reconstruction in a dental panoramic imaging system with a limited-angle zigzag scan geometry

Abstract

As a continuation of our dental imaging R&D, we have proposed a novel idea that is capable of implementing cost-effective, low-dose, volumetric image reconstruction directly onto a dental panoramic imaging system. In the proposed geometry, a linear-type panoramic detector is rotated 90° from the orientation for panoramic imaging and scanned along a limited-angle zigzag trajectory in the axial direction to cover the whole imaging volume thickness. We used an effective reconstruction algorithm based on the total-variation (TV) minimization approach for the proposed geometry and performed systematic simulation work to demonstrate the viability of our proposed approach and its effectiveness for three-dimensional (3D) dental X-ray imaging. We have successfully reconstructed images of substantially high image accuracy from the proposed geometry and evaluated the reconstruction quality by using an image similarity metric, the universal-quality index (UQI). We expect the proposed method to be applicable to developing a cost-effective, low-dose, all-in-one dental X-ray imaging system.