Affiliations: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan
National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China | Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics of Ministry of
Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei,
China
Note: [] Corresponding author: Hui Gong, Britton Chance Center for
Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430074, Hubei,
China. E-mail: huigong@mail.hust.edu.cn
Abstract: The combined system of micro-CT and fluorescence molecular
tomography (FMT) offers a new tool to provide anatomical and functional
information of small animals in a single study. To take advantages of the
combined system, a data preprocessing method is proposed to extract the valid
data for FMT reconstruction algorithms using a priori information provided by
CT. The boundary information of the animal and animal holder is extracted from
reconstructed CT volume data. A ray tracing method is used to trace the path of
the excitation beam, calculate the locations and directions of the optional
sources and determine whether the optional sources are valid. To accurately
calculate the projections of the detectors on optical images and judge their
validity, a combination of perspective projection and inverse ray tracing
method are adopted to offer optimal performance. The imaging performance of the
combined system with the presented method is validated through experimental rat
imaging.
Keywords: Micro-CT, fluorescence molecular tomography, multi-modal imaging, data preprocessing
