A new design for a micro-CT scanner

A new type of X-ray CT scanning geometry is proposed. The geometry of the scanner includes a half ring detector array and resembles the geometry of a scanner of the fourth generation. Unlike the latter, the proposed system collects parallel projections allowing efficient collimation of the incident beam for the purpose of scatter reduction. The geometry of the data collected with the proposed scanner is ideal for algorithms developed for image reconstruction from parallel projections with a non-uniform sampling such as the Orthogonal Polynomial Expansion on Disk (OPED) algorithm. This scanner can be efficiently used in applications where high precision measurements at micrometer scales are required, e.g. in the exact quantification of the morphology of small animals.