IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS,SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO.

2, APRIL 1981 231

C. E. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Com-
munication. Chicago, IL: Univ. Illinois Press, 1949.
M. S . Bartlett, An Introduction to StochasticProcesses. Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1966.
R. G. Gallagher, Information Theory and Reliable Communica-
tion. New York: Wiley, 1968.
E. T. Jaynes, “Prior probabilities,” IEEE Trans. Syst. Sci. Cybern.,
v01. SSC-4, pp. 227-241,1968.
W. M. Elsasser, “On quantum measurements and the role of the
uncertaintyrelationsin statistical mechanics,” Phys.Rev., vol.
52, pp. 987-999, NOV. 1937.
E. T. Jaynes, “Information theory and statistical mechanics I,”
fhys. Rev., vol. 108, pp. 171-190,1957.
I. J. Good, “Maximum entropy for hypothesis formulation, es-
pecially formultidimensionalcontingencytables,” Ann.Math.
Statist., vol. 34, pp. 911-934, 1963.
A. Hobson and B. Cheng, “A comparison of the Shannonand
Kullback information measures,” J. Statist. Phys., vol. 7, no. 4,
pp. 301-310, 1973.
I. J. Good, Probability and the Weighing of Evidence. London:
Griffen, 1950.
R. W. Johnson, “Determining probability distributions by maxi-
mum entropy and minimum crossentropy,” Proc. APL 79 (ACM
0-89791-005), pp. 24-29, May 1979.
L. Geronimus, Orthogonal Polynomials. New York: Consultants
Bureau, 1961.
[31] J. D. Markel and A. H. Gray, Jr., Linear Prediction of Speech.
New York: Springer-Verlag, 1976.
[32] Y.Yaglom, An Introduction to the Theory of Stationary Ran-
dom Functions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
[33] A. Papoulis, SignalAnalysis. New York: McGraw-W, 1977.
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Note 3, Contract F30602-78-C-0048.
John E. Shore (M’72-SM’Sl) was born in
England on September 2, 1946. Hereceived
the B.S. degree in physics from Yale University,
New Haven, CT, in 1968, and the Ph.D. degree
in theoretical physics fromthe University of
Maryland, CollegePark, in 1974.
In 1968 he joined the Naval ResearchLab-
oratory, Washington, DC, where he is currently
Head of the Computer Sciences Section in the
Computer Science and Branch of the Informa-
tion Technology. His research interests include
:mation theory, queuing theory, computer system
signal processing, info1
performance modeling:,and softwareengineering.

Absrract-Direct Fourier transform (FT) reconstruction of images inconversion. Although, in practice, approximations to exact in-
computerized tomography (CT) is not widely used because of the dif- terpolation may be required for reasons of economy and
ficulty of precisely interpolating from polar to Cartesiansamples.In
speed,the underlying theory furnishes both a guide and a
this paper, an exact interpolation scheme is proposed which, in prac-
standard against which other schemes can be compared.
tice, can be approached with arbitrary accuracyusing well-conditioned
algorithms. Several features of the direct FT method are discussed. A The organization of the paper is as follows. First, in Section
method that allows angular band limiting of the data beforeprocessing
I1 we review the theory that underlies the direct Fourier tech-
-to avoid angular aliasing artifacts in the reconstmcted image-is dis-
niques in CT. Next, in Section I11we discuss the theory be-
cussedand experimentally verified. The experimental results demon-
strate the feasibilityof direct FT reconstruction of CT data. hind the exact interpolation formulas. In Section IV we dis-
cuss extension of the results of Section I11 to a more general
class of functions. In Sections V and VI, sources of computa-
I. INTRODUCTION tional error and methods to ameliorate the effects of these
N this paper we present the results of an investigation into errors aregiven. Finally, some preliminary experimental re-
I computerized tomography (CT) image reconstruction using sults are furnished in Section VII.
direct Fourier techniques. The investigation is based on some
new analytical results [ l ], [2] which under certain conditions 11. BASIC THEORY
provide exact interpolation formulas for polar to Cartesian CT reconstruction by direct Fourier techniques i s based on
the projection theorem (as is the convolution back-projection
Manuscript received November 7, 1979; revised September 22, 1980. method). The theorem states that the Fourier transform of a
This work was supported by the General Electric Corporate Research projection is a center cross section of the Fourier transform of
Division and the NationalScience Foundation.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Systems En- the image. Thus, if p ( x , y ) represents the absorbtivity func-
gineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,NY 12181. tion of the object with respect to a fixed coordinate system

0096-3518/8l/0400-0237$00.75OIEEE
238 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 2 , APRIL 1981

x-y and /.to (2,9)represents the object in a coordinate system
2-9 rotated from x-y by an angle 4, then the projection of the
object at view angle 4 is defined as
P @ G ) 6 J/.t@(P,9) du^
L
circularsampling theorem (CST). The theorem can be stated
as follows.
Theorem: Let x ( t ) be periodic with highest frequency
f,, = K/T where T is the period and K is a positive integer.
(1) If the intersample period T, satisfies

where L is the beam path. In practice po(x^) represents the

data that are actually obtained. For each view angle 4, p@(x^)
is sampled at a sequence of points {x^i}determined by the lo- then x ( t ) can be reconstructed exactly from N 2 K t 1 of its
cation of the detectors. The angle @ is then incremented by uniformly spaced samples, spaced T, apart, according to
a small amount and the process is repeated. As many as 360
view angles might be used in a given run. In this paper we con-
sider only the parallel beam geometry, i.e., for each view the
M X-ray sources locatedonthe side of the object form M The proof of this theorem is given in [1] .
parallelpencil beams which go throughthe object and are We make the following observations. 1) Since the smallest
detected by M detectors on the opposite side of the object. permissible value of N is 2K + 1, the smallest even value of N
Initially, we shallignore the fact that ~ ~ (is 2 ) only
known is 2K 2. 2 ) We can apply this theorem to M ( p , 4) because
over a discrete set of points; this is done only to prevent ob-
scuring the basic theory. In Section V we shall consider the
-
M ( p , 4) M ( p , @ t 2nk) for k = 0, +1, +2, * * ,i.e., M ( p , 4) is
periodic in 4 with period 2n. Ifwe assume that M ( p , 4) is
sampled nature of p @(2). angularly band limited to highest angular frequency K , then
The one-dimensional (1 -D) Fourier transform (FT) of po (2) we can write
is given by

P@ (u) = J w p @(2)e-izn'u dg. (2)

-m
In (2), 4 is held fixed and u is a frequency variable that can be
positive or negative. If M ( p , 4) denotes the two-dimensional
(2-D) FT of ~ ( xy) , in polar coordinates, then the projection
theorem states that
P@(p)=M(p,@) p > o , 0<@<2T.
The correct interpretation of (3) is that the FT of each projec-
tion is a central cross section of theFT of theobject. In
theory if M ( p , 4) were known everywhere, it would be a sim-
ple matter to convert this FT from polar to Cartesian coordi-
nates. Assuming this to have been done and denoting the
corresponding 2-D Cartesian FT by M,(u, v), we can recon-
struct the object function by a Fourier inversion:
where N 2 2K + 1 and
We observe that in CT, each projection view gives two samples
(31 of M ( p , 4) in @.Therefore, the number of views must be con-
sistent with aneven number of samples.The smallest even
number ofsamples N is 2K t 2 if the highest angular fre-
quency is K . Therefore, K t 1 is the smallest number of views
consistent with the CT process and the most economical sam-
pling strategy is described by
(9)

p ( x , y ) =JJWM,(u, v) e j 2 n ( u x + v y ) dudv.
-00
Perhaps the most serious difficulty with the above approach
is that M ( p , @)is not known everywhere but only on a finite
discrete set of points { p i , @ k } . The problem then becomes one
of interpolating from the known values at the polar points to
(4) Next we observe that if the object is space limited to 2 A , its
projection will also be limited in extent to 2 A and therefore
theFT of the projection P$(u) canbe reconstructed from
samples uniformly spaced Au < 1/2A apart. The ideal sam-
pling reconstruction is
m

the values required over a rectangular Cartesian grid which al- P@(U) = P$ - sinc [ 2(u~- n / 2 ~ ) ] .
n=-m ( 2 2 (10)
lows the approximate realization of (4) via an inverse 2-D FFT
routine. For certain classes of functions, one can develop ex- Now using (3), (7), and (10) we obtain the final result:
act interpolation formulas forthis problem. We discuss this
matter below.

111. EXACT INTERPOLATION THEOREMS

Basic to the solution of theinterpolation problem is the
periodic function sampling theorem which we shall call the
STARK e t al.: RECONSTRUCTION IN COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY 239

where p 2 0. Equation (1 1) is in effect a two-dimensional w.AVOIDINGALIASINGERRORSIN ANGULAR

sampling theorem and enables thefunction M ( p , 0) to be SAMPLING USINGK + 1 VIEWS
computed at any set point ( p , 4) from its samples only. Our formulationfor angular interpolation in the q5 direc-
In particular, with tion is
Plrn $%=20

if M ( p , q )is angularly band limited to K . In this section we

5
we can compute {M,(u,, u,)} over the Cartesian space from show how to handle the case when the function is not angu-
which we can reconstruct the object p ( x i , y j ) via the inverse larly band limited. In so doing, wecovercases of practical
Cartesian FT (4). importance in CT applications. Assume thenthat We have
We can summarize the proceeding exact interpolation pro- available the Fourier transforms of the views or projections
cedure as a theorem.
Theorem: Let p ( x , y ) be space limited to 2A. Let its FT, M ( P , q5k) =Pr$,(p). (15)
M ( p , q5) be angularly band limited to K , then M ( p , q
5
)can be To avoid complicated subscript notation, let us agree to define
reconstructed from its polar samples M ( p , , q5k) = M(N/2A, pQk(r)and its FTP@,(p) as
nk/K + 1) via (1 1).
Several remarks on this theorem are in order: first we point p ( r ; G k ) pQk(r)
out that if the object is space limited and angularly band lim- P@; q5k) PQk(P) (16)
ited, the interpolation formula (1 1) provides the basis for ex-
act reconstruction via the inverse 2-D FT from samples of the which departs from our usual notation but will simplify the
FT of K + 1 views. In a more practical implementation, (1 1) is mathematics that follow. In (16) the quantities are related as
replaced by the p-truncated formula

where p here is an unrestricted parameter that can take posi-

tive or negative values.
Ideally the function P ( p ; $I), regarded as a function of q5,
should be low-pass filtered prior to sampling. This would ef-
The truncation introduces some edge effects for values of p
fectively change the function M ( p , $) to be angularly band
comparable to N/4A. These edge effects produce some high-
limited. The desired operation is thus
frequency artifacts in the reconstructed image. Also thein-
verse 2-D FT is replaced by
the 2-D inverse DFT (Le., IDFT). +n
These two approximations introduce truncation and aliasing
errors that can be controlled by increasing the sampling den-
~

P(P; #k) j-n

P ( p ; 4) H(q5k - q
5
)dq5 (18)

sity on the projections, the truncation parameter N in (13)

where H is the impulse response of an ideal periodic filter with
and the Cartesian grid density for the 2-D IDFT. Thus, the
band edge between K and K + 1, i.e.,H= u. Now (18) cannot
exact reconstruction canbe approached witharbitrary ac-
be directly performed because we do not haveavailable the
curacy, using well-conditioned algorithms and practical ap-
views continuously as a function of 9;we only have available
proximations.
the sampled views, p ( r ; &). However, it can be indirectly ac-
A second remark concerns the concept of a radially band-
limited function. The case K = 0 corresponds to an isotropic
complished by filtering p ( r ; q5)in the variable 9,prior to sam-
pling in angle. To see this, consider the Fourier transform
function in frequency, which implies isotropy in space. For
relation for aprojection at view angle q5:
example, a circular disk at the origin of the x-y coordinate
system would correspond to K = 0. Its FT would also be iso-
tropic. As K increases, one generally observes increasing de-
partures from isotropy.
A third and related point concerns the fact that most func-
tions p(x, y ) of CT interest will not be angular band limited Now inserting (19) into (18) and interchanging the order of
to any finite K . Thus, what does the theorem have to say in integration, we obtain
this most practical case? The answer is that, completely anal-
ogous to the conventional sampling theorem, one can angu-
larly band limit the data prior to sampling and thereby avoid
the aliasing error due to nonfinite K . This willbe shown in
the next section.
240 LEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS,
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ANDSIGNAL
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ASSP-29,
NO. 2, APRIL 1981

On
+7T

Ck(P) ~ ( p$1, d@.

Theabove results canbesummarized in the following

theorem.
Theorem: Let p ( x , y ) be space limited to a disk of radius A
centered onthe origin. If its FT M ( p , @)has angular fre-
quencieshigher than K , theoptimumreconstructionfrom
Equation(22) says thatthe angularlyband-limited data, K + 1 views is to first angularly band limit the views using (21)
needed to avoid aliasing errors in (14), can be obtained by sub- and then to reconstruct using (1 1). The resulting least squares
stituting (22) for (17) with p" given by (21). In other words, error norm is then given by (27).
one subjects the detector data to low-pass filtering in the angu- Toimplementthe required ideal low-pass filtering inthe
lar direction, prior to sampling in @, to obtain the desired K angular direction, whentaking parallel beam CT data, one
views. Clearly, in this way one obtains an optimum reconstruc- merely filters each detector output independently in time, and
tion. The reconstruction error is precisely the distortion caused then performs the angular sampling.
by angularly band limiting the H = u. Thus, with The practical importance of this result isas follows: if for
some reason one is view limited, it is generally desired to ob-
W P , 4) G W P , $1 - k ( P , $1 (23 1
tain the best reconstruction for that number of views. Using
one can obtain an expression for the mean-square error. Sup- the above filtering, followed by sampling and ideal reconstruc-
pressing the function dependence on p and noting that tion, one can reconstructthe minimummean-square error
+m image from these K views. In practice, one often works with
W @ )= c
k=-m
k
,+iW a large number of views and the beam spot size will provide an
angular band-limiting effect so that the low-pass filters may be
omitted. However, in those situations where one has only a
and
small number of views, the low-pass filters will be essential to
avoid angular aliasing errors in the reconstructed cross section
image.
k =-K
Practical estimates of the required value of K are given in the
we can use Parseval's theorem to obtain next section.

V. SOURCES OF COMPUTATIONAL ERRORS

J-7r k=--m InCTimaging by Fourier methods,there are three main
sources of errors. These result from
and
1) inadequate sampling in space,
2) inadequate sampling in radial frequency,
3) insufficient number of views.
We briefly discuss each of these errors below
Hence, since
A. Inadequate Sampling in Space
!El2= IMI2 + !%I2 - M i *- M*k, Since the object is space limited, its projections will also be
we obtain space limited. Hence, forthe purposeofimagereconstruc-
tion,the spacedomainprojectionswillalwaysbe under-
sampledandinsteadof obtainingthe sequence P@(k/2A),
one obtains the periodic extension

Bringing back the functional dependance on p , and integrat-

ing over p we have

where N is the number of samples in the projection and2A is

the spatial extent of the object. Unless P@(.)is of compact
or support, aliasingwill result whichwillproduce distortion in
kG-K- 1
the reconstructed image. However, a space-limited object can-
not bebandlimitedaswell and therefore aliasingisalways
STARK e t al.: RECONSTRUCTION IN COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY 241

present although its effect can be ameliorated by choosing N Thus, the approximate required number of views to achieve a
large enough. In addition, the finite width of the X-ray beam certain angular resolution is related to the size of the object
produces a smoothed projection function which is somewhat and the highest spatial frequency required in the reconstruc-
akin to passing the projection function through a low-pass fil- tion. This result agrees with what is given in the literature [3].
ter. Hence, in practice, the amount of aliasing can be made Another consideration in choosing K (or N ) relates to the
tolerably small without great difficulty. polar-to-Cartesian interpolation problem. Assume for simplic-
ity that a nearest-neighbor type interpolation is used. Then if
B. Inadequate Sampling in Radial Frequency the number of samples N in a centralslice of the Fourier plane
Inadequate sampling in radial frequency can, of course ,pro- is very large, the bandwidth B = NAu/2 will be large and the
duce additional aliasingif the sampling rate is less than the “spokes” in the frequency plane willgo far out. If K is too
Nyquist rate of 2 A points/cycle. However, assuming that this small, nearest-neighbor interpolation at high radial frequencies
is not a problem, we must still consider twoother effects. could cause significant errors since the “nearest neighbors”
First, if the Fourier samples extend out to a radius B and are will in factbequitedistant.Thus,fora fixed K , one may
zerobeyond,the effect is the sameasif an ideal low-pass want to decrease the bandwidth, i.e., decrease N to reduce in-
truncationfunction were overlayed onan infinite array of terpolation-related artifacts. An alternative to decreasing the
samples. The effective bandwidth of the reconstructed image bandwidth when the number of views is considerably less than
is NAu/2, where Au is the frequency interval spacing and N is required by (31) or (32),is to employ the low-pass angular fil-
the number of samples along a central slice in the Fourier tering of Section N to eliminate possible artifacts. This will
plane. Clearly, if N is too small, a low-pass filtered image is result in an effective reduction in angular bandwidth or resolu-
reconstructed. Second, inadequate sampling in radial fre- tion, while leavingradial bandwidth and resolution intact.
quency can also produce interpolationartifacts. However,
these are more difficult to discuss since they depend on the VI. NEAR-OPTIMAL INTERPOLATION FILTERS
nature of the interpolation, the number of views and the maxi- A. Truncated Cardinal Function Expansion
mum angular frequency K .
In the computer implementation of the optimal interpola-
C. Insufficient Number of Views tion formula (1 1 ) it is necessary to truncate the interpolation
For many nonisotropic or off-centered objects, the theoret- functions about their largest values. Thus, practically, (1 1) is
ical value of K may be very large or infinite. However, it is replaced by
always possible to determine a K value that will result in very
good reconstructions. This value is based on the radius of sup-
port A and the approximate isotropic bandwidth B. In deter- n=np-L, k=k@-L@
mining a suitable value of K , several factors need to be con-
sidered. First consider an object of extent 2 A . The maximum
Cartesian grid spacing in frequency is Au = 1/(2A). If B is an
approximate bandwidth for the image, then B is the approxi-
mate radius of the nonzero portion of the function on the where the nearest neighbors [2Ap.] 4 n, and [(K + 1 ) @/TI
A
Fourier plane and the maximum angular separation is obtained = k@.
from If L , = LG = 0, the estimate reduces to the nearest neighbor
interpolation. For all values of L , and LG, the interpolation is
Au = BAG an FIR filtering of the polar samples. Since the filter coeffi-
or cients are truncated cardinal functions, it is possible to alter
. .
these values to optimize over the interpolation error.
Belowwegive an analysis of the case L , = LG = 0 corre-
sponding to nearest neighbor interpolation. This is followed
Now A @is given by by a discussion of the use of optimal FIR interpolators to im-
2n n prove on theapproximation (33).
A$ = - (30)
number of samples number of views * B. Nearest Neighbor Interpolation: Approximate Analysis
Also, the smallest allowable number of views that will recon- An exact computation of nearest neighbor (NN) noise in the
struct an angular frequency K is K + 1 . For large K , K + 1 =K reconstructed image appears to be a difficult task. However,
so that A@N n/K = 2/N from (29). some idea of the nature of this noise can be obtained by con-
Hence , sidering the following “dual” problem. We shall consider the
1-Dcase only since our primary objective is to obtain a quali-
tative understanding of the process. The dual problem con-
siders the noise resulting from a jitter introducedin an equally
= 2nAB. spaced Fourier sequence from which the image is recon-
242 IEEE
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AND
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VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 2 , APRIL 1981

structed. In the actual problem, the jitter is introducedby
associating the FT values at unequally spaced points with
those at equally spaced points.
Consider thenthe following problem. Suppose that F(u)
represents the Fourier transform of a space-limited function
of support 2A. In particular we want to reconstruct what
we shall call the ideal image using the IDFT of the sequence
3 ( k ) & F [ k / 2 h A ] where h > 1. Now assume that instead
of obtaining the sequence F [ k / 2 A ] we obtain the sequence
F [ k / 2 h At Ek] where Ek is a uniform random variable (RV)
with probability density function (pdf)
From (37), wesee that the noise in the reconstructed image
can be reduced by increasing h (i.e., increase the sampling rate
which brings the neighbors closer to the point and thereby re-
duces the error). When the slope F’(k) is constant, i.e., inde-
pendent of k , then the mean-squared error of the frequency-
plane noise is independent of k. Hence, the noise is white and
R ( m - 1 ) is zero everywhere over a cycle except when m = 1.
This is easily verifiedfrom (39).
In image reconstruction by direct Fourier methods, we have
foundthat NN-interpolation produces both high-frequency
noise (indicating a constant slope component in the Fourier
transform) and relatively large artifacts indicated strongly

:1
1 - AU
- < Ek <-Au correlated components of noise.
P(Ek) 2
= ’ 2 (34)
otherwise C. FIR Interpolators
Here we consider the approximation to (11) that results
and Au 2 1/2hA.
from replacing the cardinal functions in (33) by optimal FIR
+ Ek), where pk & 2ek h A .
NOW define 3 (k t p k ) & F ( k / 2 h A
interpolators [4]. In place of the continuous ( p , 4) in (33),
Note that pk = 2EkhA is a uniform RV such that I p k I < $. If
the FIR interpolators will produce the output on an interpo-
h is large enough, then to a first approximation
lated polar grid that is, say, I times as dense as the one on
F(Uk t Ek) E F(Uk) t EkFr(Uk) (3 5) which A4 is sampled. One then resorts to nearest neighbor
interpolation on this finer grid to actually obtain the required
or
Cartesian samples.
3(k t p k ) 3(k) -I- 3‘ ( k ) (36 ) Iffor I-foldinterpolation we have theFIR interpolating
2hA
functions
where F’(Uk) is the first derivative of F(u) evaluated at Uk =
k / 2 h A and 3’(k) 4 F’(k/2hA).
Now define the sequence { f(m)} given by
N- 1 then (33) is modified to become
f ( m )= 3 ( k )ej(2n/N)mk m = 0,. . . ,N - 1
k=O

as the ideal image. Let

n ( m )= Pk F’(k) ej(Zn/N)mk
- m = 0, . ,N - 1
k=O 2hA
where
(37)
be the noise due to the random displacement of the required
points fromthe given points in the frequency domain. The
correlation function of the noise is and
-
N-1N-1 p k pi
R(m - o = n(m>n*(l>= 4h2A2
k=O i = O
Through the use of optimum Chebyshev interpolators, the
error in the interpolated samples can be reduced over that in
We assume that (33). The Gibbs phenomena associated with thetruncation
of the cardinal functions is eliminated. Computationally, the
calculation of the sinc and (T functions isreplaced by table
look-up of the appropriate fdter coefficients. A disadvantage
(0, otherwise. to using the optimal interpolators is that one must ultimately
resort to nearest neighbor interpolationonthe fine output
Then
grid. This last step can cause the accuracy advantage to shift
back to thetruncated Cardinal expansion if I is not large
enough. To reduce this effect one can
1) design the FIR filters to interpolate by a larger factor;
2 ) design one or both of the low-pass filers in the interpo-
lator equation (40) to band limit below the associated Nyquist
frequencies to introduce an additional smoothing between
samples.
STARK et al.: RECONSTRUCTION IN COMPUTER TOMOGRAPHY 243

Which of the three methods, i.e., truncated Cardinal expan-

sion, nearest neighbor, or Chebyshev optimFIR filtering is
most appropriate depends primarily on thequality of the recon-
structed image and the amount of computational time and ef-
-A
fort required to meet the specified criterion of performance.

r
Such a comparative study is recommended for further investi-
gation.

VII. DEMONSTRATION OF IMAGE IMPROVEMENT BY

ANGULAR FILTERING
The simulated object is shown in Fig. 1. It consists of five
disks of varying diameter, placed one inside the other with a
staircase gray level and a calibration triangle outside the larg-
est disk. In the simulation, we used 128 views spanning 360".
The projectiondata associated with each view consisted of
128 discrete samples. The main purposes of the experiment
d + I . I L J '
i
were to see how well direct Fourier transform techniques
worked and how much improvement in image quality was ob- Fig. 1. The test object.
tained by angular low-pass filtering. In Fig. 2 the effects of
azimuthal aliasing are clearly discernable as evidenced by the
streaking artifacts. With angular low-pass filtering before re-
construction, the streak artifacts are significantly lessvisible
and the reconstructed image is of higher quality.
In both Figs. 2 and 3, a X 4 FIR interpolator followed by
nearest neighbor interpolation was used to convert from polar
to Cartesian samples. The shading that is visible in both Figs.
2 and 3 is hypothesized to be the consequence of the less-
than-optimum interpolation that was used.

VIII. COMPARISON OF DIRECTFOURIER TECHNIQUE

WITH FILTERED CONVOLUTION BACK
PROJECTION (FCBP)
Reconstruction of CT imagery using convolution back- Fig. 2. Direct Fourier transform reconstruction of test object without
projection typically requires 0 ( N 3 ) operations (Le., multipli- low-passangular filtering. Azimuthalaliasing is manifest by streak
artifacts.
cations and additions) on the data. The purpose of this study
was to investigate whether Fourier techniques could produce
satisfactory imagery using only O(N2 log N ) operations on the
data. It iseasy to show that this constraint allows no more
than K 1 log N operations per interpolated point where K 1 is
some constant independent of N . To see this, consider that
the FFT of each N-point projection requires N log N op-
erations (we ignore all constant factors for simplicity). If
there are N projections, we require N 2 log N operations to
generate the 2-D Fourier transform. The spatial-frequency
plane therefore has roughly N 2 points and the 2-D IFFT oper-
ation that generates the image requires N 2 log N 2 or 2N2
log N operations. So far we have ignored theinterpolation
problem but it is clear that if k ( N ) operations are involved per
interpolation,the N 2 k ( N ) is the number of operationsin-
volved for all N 2 points. Hence, to stay within an N 2 log N Fig. 3. Direct Fouriertransformreconstructionoftestobjectwith
low-pass angular filtering of projection data prior to reconstruction.
order of complexity, k must depend on N at most as log N . Streak artifactsare not visible.
Given then this constraint, how well does the direct Fourier
technique based on the strategy of truncating the exact inter-
polation expression of (33) compare with FCBP? To answer ing. The number of polar points used in interpolating from
this question we obtained parallel-beam projection data for the the polar grid to a given point on a Cartesian grid had-in ac-
phantom shown in Fig. 1. The data consisted of projections cordance withthe discussion in the first paragraph of'this
for 256 views over 180" at 512 detectors per view. The recon- section-to be small. We found that only 15 polar points were
structed images were 5 12 X 5 12 pixels in resolution. The large sufficient to produce excellent results. In addition we found
number of views obviated the need for angular low-pass filter- that image quality improved when thetruncation was not
244 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. ASSP-29, NO. 2, APRIL 1981

Fourier methods basically require O(N2 log N ) computations

as opposed to O(N3)for FCBP.

M.CONCLUSIONS
We have addressed the problem of direct Fourier transform
reconstruction of images in computerized tomography and
have derived an exact interpolation algorithm to convert dis-
crete polar data to Cartesian data. In practice, exact interpola-
tion can be ap.proached with arbitrary accuracy provided that
the projection data are first angularly band limited. A practical
method for achieving the required band limiting was described
and experimentally verified on images reconstructed by the
direct Fourier method. Image reconstruction using the direct
Fourier technique was then compared with reconstruction by
FCBP.Theimageswere found to be of comparable quality
proving thatthe direct Fourier technique-requiring only
O(N2 log N ) computations-is an effective and efficient image
reconstruction procedure.

REFERENCES

[ l ] H. Stark, “Sampling theorems in polar coordinates,” J. Opt. SOC.

Amer., vol. 69, Nov. 1979.
[2] H. Stark, I. N. Paul, and C. S . Sarna, “Fourier-transform recon-
struction in CAT by exact interpolation,” presented at the IEEE
Conf. Eng. in Medicine and Biology, Denver, CO, Oct. 6-7, 1979.
[3] R. M. Mersereau, “Direct Fourier transform techniquesin 3-D.
Image reconstruction,” Comput. Biol. Med., vol. 6, pp. 247-
258,1976.
[4] R. W. Schafer and L. R. Rabiner, “A digital signal processing ap-
proach to interpolation,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 61, pp. 692-702, June
1973.
(b)
Fig. 4. (a) Reconstruction of phantom of Fig. 1 from projection data
using direct Fourier algorithm. (b) Reconstruction of phantom of
Fig. 1from projection data using filtered convolution back-projection.

abrupt but was tapered. The taper we used is the Cartesian

product of two I-D triangular windows, w(n),of the form

Adding the taper windows did not increase the number of

computations in any significant way as table look-up schemes
were used. Finally, in the interest. of reducing computations
we experimented with low-pass filtering of the image. This
was done by applying a zero-one cookie-cutter function to
the spatial frequency plane. We found that an excellent image
could be reconstructed by using the Fourier data up to 0.8 of
full band (Le., 0.8 of the radius of the polar boundary) and
discarding the points outside. For low-pass filtering up to 0.8
of full band, approximately 50 percent fewer Cartesian FT
values are required for reconstruction of the image.
Fig. 4(a) and (b) shows the phantom reconstruction by the
direct Fourier method and by a standard FCBP algorithm. The John Woods (S’67-M’70), for a photographand biography, see this
images are of comparable quality despite the fact that direct issue, p. 196.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON ACOUSTICS,
SPEECH, AND
SIGNAL PROCESSING,
VOL.
ASSP-29, NO.
APRIL
2, 1981
245

Indraneel Paul (S’78) was born in Calcutta, In- 2-D recursive filter design, image modeling and estimation, and com-
dia, on June 11, 1956. He received his B.Tech. puted tomography.
(Hons.)degreein electrical engineering from
the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,
in 1978 and the M.S. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Troy, NY, in 1979.
He is at present working towards his doctor-
ate at R.P.I. His research activities and interests Rajesh Hingorani, photograph and biography not available at the time
include information and rate-distortion theory, of publication.

New Methods .for the Design of Recursive Digital

Filters in the Time Domain
T m S H I YMAGI, MEMBER, IEEE

A6smcr-This paper presents new methods for thedesign of optimal digital ones. On theotherhand,themethods in the time
and suboptimal recursive digital fiiters in the time domain. The pro- domain are based on the approximation of the given desired
posed methods are based on the approximation of the desired impulse
response of a digital fiiter. Since the duration of impulse response of a
impulse response [3] - [ 9 ] .
recursive digital fiiter is not fiiite, itis desirable to use an infiiite inter- This paper presents new methods for the design of optimal
val performance index from the point of stability. First, a method for and suboptimal recursive digital filters in the time domain.
the design of an optimal recursive digital filter is presented. The opti- First, a method for the design of an optimal recursive digital
mal solution is obtained by minimizing the given infinite interval per- filter is presented. The recursive digital filter is expressed by
formanceindex. Multivariable optimizationtechniques such as the
Fletcher-Powell method can be applied to obtain the optimal solution.
a state equation, andan infinite interval quadratic performance
However,when the order of a filter becomeshigh, it is difficult to index is minimized. Since the impulse response of a recursive
obtain the optimal solution. Next, suboptimal recursive digital filters digital filter does not vanish in a finite interval, it is desirable
with parallel and cascade structures areproposed. When these methods to use an infinite interval performance index from the point
are used, it becomes easy to design ahigh-ordersuboptimal filter. of stability. Although the preceding methodscannot be
Various numerical examples areshown to illustrate the results indetail.
applied to the infinite interval performance index, the optimal
parameters of a recursive digital filter can be obtainedby using
I. INTRODUCTION the proposed method. It is important to note that the for-

T HE role of digital filters in the area of digital signal pro- mulas become simpler when the interval of the performance
cessing has become more important with the development index is infinite as shown in this paper. Nevertheless, when
of digital techniques. It is known that digital fiters can be the order of a filter becomes high, it is difficult to obtain the
designed in the frequency and time domains [l], [ 2 ] . The optimal solution. Next, two methods for the design of sub-
most usual methods in the frequency domain are based on the optimal recursive digital filters are presented. When these
change of variables from Laplace transform to z-transform. methodsare used, high-order suboptimal recursive digital
These are the straight transformations from analog filters to fdterswith parallel and cascade structures can be designed.
If two mth-order fiters are connected in parallel or in cascade,
Manuscript received May 15, 1979;revised September 30, 1980.
The author is with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Chiba then the suboptimal value of the performance index is always
University, Chiba, Japan. smaller than the optimalvalue of one mth-order filter.

0096-3518/81/0400-0245$00.75 0 1981 IEEE