ELEC 8501: The Fourier Transform and Its Applications

E. Lam September 3, 2009

Fourier Transform in Computed Tomography

Suppose we have a biological object (say, a human being) and we would like to look inside
without opening it up (with surgery). We have, at our disposal, an array of X-ray sources on one
side of the object, and an array of detectors toward the other side. Both are mounted on a rotating
wheel, so that we can move them at various angles with respect to the object. The question is:
Can we deduce the information about the inner part of the object from the signals at the detectors,
captured at dierent angles of rotation?
The answer is a resounding yes, and this is the basis of computed tomography (CT), one of the
most important medical imaging modalities for diagnosing conditions ranging from skull fracture to
pulmonary artery blockage and cancer. Figure 1 shows a graphical representation of a CT system.
Let (, ) denote the object we need to capture. The sources and detectors are oriented at an angle
such that the latter records the contributions of (, ) along the line cos + sin = for
dierent values of . (Such a CT system is called a parallel-beam architecture.) Mathematically,
the captured signal () is related to (, ) by

() = (, )( cos + sin ) d d, (1)

where () is the delta function. The CT image reconstruction can then be stated mathematically
as recovering (, ) from () for a collection of .
We can see why this is at least possible in principle. Suppose we only capture at one particular
angle . If it were the case, the data at the detectors cannot distinguish the contributions along the
line-of-sight from the sources. However, such points would contribute to dierent detectors at other
orientations. Therefore, at least theoretically, if we have a suciently large number of orientations,
we would have the necessary information in the detected signals for reconstruction. The actual
process of the reconstruction actually depends on a simple Fourier transform relationship, called the
projection-slice theorem, which states that the one-dimensional Fourier transform of the projection
of a two-dimensional signal (the detected signals at a particular orientation in CT) is equal to
the slice of its two-dimensional at the same angle. This theorem provides the basis for practical
reconstruction methods such as ltered backprojection.

cos + sin =

(, () )

cos , 0

()

detectors

Figure 1: Parallel-beam projection in computed tomography.