RECONSTRUCTION AND VISUALIZATION PROGRAMS

SkyScan supplies all micro-CT scanners with high-speed volumetric reconstruction software, which can be optionally accelerated by a GPU-cluster, which contains eight NVIDIA Tesla cards. The results of 3D reconstruction can be displayed by slice-by-slice scrolling, by three orthogonal sections through any internal point of the reconstructed space, or by conversion to realistic 3D models..

•   VISUALIZATION, FORMAT CONVERSION

SkyScan supplies variety of reconstruction options including multithread reconstruction by Feldkamp algorithm, InstaRecon® reconstruction based on new patented algorithms and GPU-accelerated reconstruction.

All reconstruction programs are using cone-beam volumetric algorithms with automatic adaptation to particular scanning geometry in each micro-CT scanner. Reconstructed slices can be saved in BMP, TIFF, JPG, PNG or numerical data format. Reconstruction includes beam-hardening correction, alignment optimization, ring artifact correction, reconstruction in a restricted volume of interest, reconstruction of objects larger than the field of view, external and internal calibration into Hounsfield units, defect pixel masking, interactive density window selection and many other options.

Standard NRecon, supports reconstruction by NReconServer and GPUReconServer reconstruction engines using an identical user interface. The optimized reconstruction by Feldkamp algorithm (NReconServer) and the GPU-accelerated reconstruction (GPUReconServer) are free available and standard included for all SkyScan instruments for single PC with one or two graphical cards.

The GPU-accelerated reconstruction in server version can be supplied as an option and can run on virtually unlimited number of computers connected to network with any number of graphical cards. As most powerful option, we can supply the GPU-cluster reconstruction with a 19" rack mounted highly optimized GPU cluster, which contains eight NVIDIA Tesla graphical cards with Kepler architecture, 144GB RAM, multiple drives connected to fastest RAID0 controller and integrated GigaBit network; everything is running under 64-bit Microsoft Windows-7 operation system.

The reconstructed set of slices can be flexibly viewed in SkyScan's "Data Viewer" program. Images are displayed as a slice-by-slice movie or as three orthogonal sections, centered at any selected point inside the reconstructed space. Data Viewer also has a viewing mode with three intersecting orthogonal sections, which can be turned and each intersecting slice independently moved by simple mouse control. Additional features include variable smoothing, saving interpolated datasets in saggital or coronal section, measuring and saving distances and intensity profiles. The format converter utility "T-conv" converts between TIFF, BMP and JPEG files with adjustment of colour palette, inversion, renaming, resizing and combining of datasets. A utility is also provided for conversion to DICOM 3 format.

 

 RECONSTRUCTION AND VISUALIZATION PROGRAMS