Calibration-free method for beam-hardening compensation: preliminary results

CT images are often affected by beam-hardening due to the polychromatic nature of the spectra. As a result, artifacts appear in the image as cupping on homogeneous areas and streaks among dense parts in heterogeneous samples.We propose a new correction method based on the complete characterization of the beam hardening effect for each study based only on the data acquired from the sample, without the need of the knowledge of the spectra, calibration steps or tuning of correction parameters.Preliminary evaluation using simulations of a 3D mouse atlas shows a complete removal of streaks in the whole sample, with a percentage of real values recovery of 97% in soft tissue and 99% in bone.