High precision performance evaluation for digital radiography detectors

Performance of digital radiography detectors can be evaluated from measuring the noise power spectrum (NPS), modulation transfer function, and detective quantum efficiency (DQE). Hence, measuring these quantities with high precisions is important. In this paper, to measure the quantities, we introduce a program, which is called DRDQE (digital radiography DQE). DRDQE supports the IEC62220 standards for various radiography detectors. Furthermore, DRDQE can measure NPS and DQE with high precisions based on Small-Subimage Algorithm. Compensated Partial-Sum Algorithm is also adopted to measure a high-precision NPS at zero frequency. We briefly introduce the employed algorithms in DRDQE and then show an example of DRDQE usage for a direct flat-panel mammography detector. The high-precision measurements from DRDQE were compared with the IEC62220 standard.