Cascaded Frequency-Encoded Multi-Scale Neural Fields for Sparse-View CT Reconstruction

Abstract

Sparse-view computed tomography aims to reduce radiation exposure but often suffers from degraded image quality due to insufficient projection data. Traditional methods struggle to balance data fidelity and detail preservation, particularly in high-frequency regions. In this paper, we propose a Cascaded Frequency-Encoded Multi-Scale Neural Fields (Ca-FMNF) framework. We reformulate the reconstruction task as refining high-frequency residuals upon a high-quality low-frequency foundation. It integrates a pre-trained iterative unfolding network for initial low-frequency estimation with a FMNF to represent high-frequency residuals. The FMNF parameters are optimized by minimizing the discrepancy between the measured projections and those estimated through the imaging forward model, thereby refining the residuals based on the initial estimation. This dual-stage strategy enhances data consistency and preserves fine structures. The extensive experiments on simulated and clinical datasets demonstrate that our method achieves the optimal results in both quantitative metrics and visual quality, effectively reducing artifacts and preserving structural details.