Forward deformation of PET volumes using material constraints

Abstract

A method for non-rigidly deforming 3D PET datasets is described. The method uses a Lagrangian motion field description and a forward deformation mapping which conserves total voxel intensities. To regularize the deformation, a large-deformation isotropic strain energy function is used that models the material properties of cardiac tissue. The method is applied to motion compensation in PET to combine different time frames, or gates, of a cardiac sequence.