Spatial resolution properties in cone beam CT: a simulation study.

This work is intended to investigate the spatial resolution properties in cone beam CT by estimating the point spread functions (PSFs) in the reconstructed 3D images through simulation. The point objects were modeled as 3D delta functions. Their projections onto the detector plane were analytically derived and blurred with 2D PSFs estimated and used to represent the detector and focal spot blurring effects. The 2D PSF for detector blurring was computed from the line spread function measured for a typical a-Si/CsI flat panel detector used for general radiography. The focal spot blurring effect was simulated for an x-ray source with a nominal focal spot size of 0.6 mm and 1.33 x magnification at the rotating center. Projection images were computed and sampled with an interval significantly smaller than the detector pixel size to avoid aliasing. Images were reconstructed using the Feldkamp algorithm with the five different filter functions. Reconstructed PSFs were plotted and analyzed to investigate the effects of detector blurring alone, focal spot blurring alone, or a combination of the two on the PSFs and their variations with the radial distance and z-level. Effects of binning and reconstruction filters were also studied. Our results show that the PSFs due to detector blurring are largely symmetric and vary little with the locations of the point objects. With focal spot blurring only or added to detector blurring, the PSFs along the rotation axis were largely symmetric but became increasingly asymmetric as the point objects were moved away from the rotation axis. The PSFs were found to become wider in the axial (anode to cathode) direction as the objects were moved toward the cathode side. The 3D PSFs may be approximated by an ellipsoid with three different axial lengths. They were found to point upright along the rotating axis but tilt toward the rotating axis as the point object was moved away from the axis.