Helical dual source cone-beam micro-CT

While helical scanning is well established in the clinical arena, most micro-CT scanners use circular cone beam trajectories and approximate reconstructions based on a filtered backprojection (FBP) algorithm. This may be sufficient for some applications, but in studies of larger animals, such as rats, the size of the detector can constrain the field of view and extend scan time. To address this problem, we have designed and implemented helical scanning and reconstruction procedures for an in-house-developed dual source cone-beam micro-CT system. The reconstruction uses a simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique combined with total variation regularization (SART-TV). We implemented this algorithm on a graphics processing unit (GPU) to reduce run time. The results demonstrate the speed and accuracy of the GPU-based SART-TV algorithm. The helical scan enables the reconstruction of volumes with extended field of view for whole body micro-CT imaging of large rodents.