Sharon C Wang

US Patent:

6415013, Jul 2, 2002

Filed:

Dec 28, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/751225

Inventors:

Jiang Hsieh - Brookfield WI
Stephen W. Metz - Paris, FR
Sharon X. Wang - Brookfield WI

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

A61B 603

US Classification:

378 19, 378 4, 378901, 382131

Abstract:

There is therefore provided, in one embodiment of the present invention, a method for reconstructing a volume image of an object. The method includes steps of scanning an object with a multislice computed tomographic (CT) imaging system having a multislice detector array to acquire projection data of a volume of the object; filtering the acquired projection data; and backprojecting the filtered projection data to reconstruct voxels of the volume image. The multislice detector array has a plurality of rows and columns of detector elements and the backprojecting includes interpolating the filtered projection data across both rows and columns of the multislice detector array.

US Patent:

6418184, Jul 9, 2002

Filed:

Dec 29, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/752275

Inventors:

Sharon X. Wang - Brookfield WI
Stephen W. Metz - Paris, FR
John A. Fusco - Waukesha WI

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

A61B 603

US Classification:

378 15, 378901

Abstract:

One aspect of the present invention is a method for reconstructing an image of an object utilizing a computed tomographic (CT) imaging system. The method includes steps of: helically scanning an object; interpolating an axial fan beam set of projection data as a vector function {right arrow over (R)} from a fan beam set of projection data from the helical scan {right arrow over (R)} , where i=1,. . . , n is a row index and n represents a of number of rows of the detector array, using a relationship written as: where w () is a weighting function written as: where m is a number of images used for z smoothing, is a gantry rotation angle for a plane of reconstrution of a jth image, and where constants and g(x) is either a linear or non-linear function.

US Patent:

6490334, Dec 3, 2002

Filed:

Jun 29, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/896957

Inventors:

Sharon X. Wang - Brookfield WI
Thomas L. Toth - Brookfield WI
Piero U. Simoni - New Berlin WI
Stephen W. Metz - Greenfield WI
Jiang Hsieh - Brookfield WI

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

A61B 603

US Classification:

378 15, 378 19, 378901

Abstract:

There is therefore provided, in one aspect, a method for imaging an object utilizing a computed tomographic (CT) imaging system having a rotating gantry, a multislice detector array on the rotating gantry and using at least n 1 rows of detector channels, and a radiation source on the rotating gantry configured to project a beam of radiation towards the multislice detector array through an object to be imaged. The method includes helically scanning the object with the CT imaging system at a pitch p n to acquire projection data from the n rows of detector channels; applying a combined helical weight and conjugate weight to at least a portion of the acquired projection data to produce virtual projection data compensating for incomplete helical row data of the acquired projection data; and reconstructing an image of the object utilizing the acquired projection data and the virtual projection data.

US Patent:

6490335, Dec 3, 2002

Filed:

Nov 21, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/990423

Inventors:

Sharon Xiaorong Wang - Brookfield WI
Brian Grekowicz - Pewaukee WI

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technologies Company LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

A61B 603

US Classification:

378 15, 378 4, 378901, 382131

Abstract:

A method and apparatus for performing image reconstruction using data obtained by an N beam helical scan, the method including generating projection data arrays for each of the N rows in a CT detector, weighting the data arrays using a unique weighting function that including different weighting functions for a first detector row, a last detector row and the middle detector rows between the first and last detector rows thereby generating helical weighted arrays for each row, applying a half scan weight to each helical weighted array and using the half scan weighted arrays to generate a slice image.

US Patent:

6522714, Feb 18, 2003

Filed:

Nov 9, 2001

Appl. No.:

10/037032

Inventors:

Sharon Wang - Brookfield WI
Stephen Metz - Greenfield WI
Thomas Toth - Brookfield WI
Piero U. Simoni - New Berlin WI
Jianying Li - New Berlin WI

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technologies Company LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

A61B 603

US Classification:

378 15, 378 19, 378901

Abstract:

A method and apparatus for performing image reconstruction using data obtained by an N beam helical scan, the method including generating projection data arrays for each of the N row in a CT detector, weighting the data arrays using a unique weighting function that is applicable to detectors having many different numbers of rows N to generate helical weighted arrays for each row, weighting the helical weighted arrays by applying a conjugate weighting function to generate conjugate arrays for each detector row and then combining the conjugate weighted arrays, filtering and back-projecting to generate a slice image.

US Patent:

6885764, Apr 26, 2005

Filed:

Nov 21, 2001

Appl. No.:

09/990979

Inventors:

Sharon X. Wang - Brookfield WI, US
Piero U. Simoni - New Berlin WI, US
Thomas Toth - Brookfield WI, US
Stephen Metz - Greenfield WI, US

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

G06K009/00

US Classification:

382131, 382173, 378 4, 25037009

Abstract:

A method and apparatus for quickly rendering thick CT slice images wherein the data corresponding to an optimal number of slice images to be combined to generate a thick image and the data set required to generate the thick image are determined as a function of an optimal Z-smoothing factor and wherein Z-smoothing is implemented in software that performs quickly and is useable with any helical weighting algorithm and Z-smoothing function.

US Patent:

7031993, Apr 18, 2006

Filed:

Feb 18, 2000

Appl. No.:

09/507521

Inventors:

Min Xie - Waukesha WI, US
Sharon X. Wang - Brookfield WI, US

Assignee:

GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company, LLC - Waukesha WI

International Classification:

G06F 1/02

US Classification:

708277

Abstract:

A method for computing a natural logarithm function includes partitioning a mantissa region between 1 and 2 into N equally spaced sub-regions; precomputing a reference point aof each of the N equally spaced sub-regions, where i=0,. . . ,N−1; selecting N sufficiently large so that, within each sub-region, a first degree polynomial in m computes log(m) to within a preselected degree of accuracy for any m within the sub-region, where m is a mantissa of a binary floating point representation of a variable x; and computing a value of log(x) for a binary floating point representation of x stored in a memory of a computing device utilizing the first degree polynomial in m.