| Ill-posed problems are a topic of an interdisciplinary interest arising in remote sensing and non-invasive imaging. However, there are issues crucial for successful application of the theory to a given imaging modality. Positron emission tomography (PET) is a non-invasive imaging technique that allows assessing biochemical processes taking place in an organism in vivo . PET is a valuable tool in investigation of normal human or animal physiology, diagnosing and staging cancer, heart and brain disorders. PET is similar to other tomographie imaging techniques in many ways, but to reach its full potential and to extract maximum information from projection data, PET has to use accurate, yet practical, image reconstruction algorithms. Several topics related to PET image reconstruction have been explored in the present dissertation. The following contributions have been made: (1) A system matrix model has been developed using an analytic detector response function based on linear attenuation of gamma-rays in a detector array. It has been demonstrated that the use of an oversimplified system model for the computation of a system matrix results in image artefacts. (IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 2000); (2) The dependence on total counts modelled analytically was used to simplify utilisation of the cross-validation (CV) stopping rule and accelerate statistical iterative reconstruction. It can be utilised instead of the original CV procedure for high-count projection data, when the CV yields reasonably accurate images. (IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 2001); (3) A regularisation methodology employing singular value decomposition (SVD) of the system matrix was proposed based on the spatial resolution analysis. A characteristic property of the singular value spectrum shape was found that revealed a relationship between the optimal truncation level to be used with the truncated SVD reconstruction and the optimal reconstructed image resolution. (IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 2001); (4) A novel event-by-event linear image reconstruction technique based on a regularised pseudo-inverse of the system matrix was proposed. The algorithm provides a fast way to update an image potentially in real time and allows, in principle, for the instant visualisation of the radioactivity distribution while the object is still being scanned. The computed image estimate is the minimum-norm least-squares solution of the regularised inverse problem. |
