RadShield NCRP Example: Radiographic Room

The purpose of this document is to provide a walkthrough using RadShield to calculate shielding
requirements for a radiographic room, as outlined by NCRP report 147. The specific example can be
found on page 74 of NCRP report 147, and the reader is encouraged to follow along with both.

Getting started

To use RadShield, you must have a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on your computer. Note that some
of the images in this tutorial are from previous versions of RadShield, but the overall concept is the same.

Making the floor plan image

RadShield is designed to be used with an image file of the scaled floor plan. The floor plan is imported
into RadShield and used as a template to draw barriers, x-ray sources and regions of interest. Variables
are assigned to these drawn objects and a thorough shielding calculation is performed at many points
on the floor plan. Although a floor plan is not necessary for using RadShield, it is recommended.

We go to the PDF of NCRP 147 and take a screenshot of the floor plan we intend to use, and save it as a
separate image file. I prefer .png but other formats are acceptable as well. One can print screen or use a
snipping tool create an image file of your floor plan.

For this tutorial, I cleaned up the image file by removing some of the arrows and distances.
Import the image file into RadShield using the picture button, File menu > Load Floor Plan, or by pressing
ctrl + L.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Setting the scale

It is important to set the scale of the floor plan, as RadShield will automatically determine distances
based on the image file pixel size. The simplest way to do this is to select a wall whose distance is
already known, and use that to set the scale.

Suppose you measured Wall 1 with a tape measure and found it was 4 meters long. Find the ruler
button on the top toolbar and select it. This can be used to measure distances and also set the scale of
the floor plan.

Create a line by dragging the mouse on the workspace. You can right click near the ends of the line and
make fine adjustments to place the ends where you want. You can also type in values for X1, Y1, X2 and
Y2 if you’re inclined.
In the object list editor window, all objects drawn on the workspace are added
and managed. The top portion is the list, and various properties are shown on the
bottom portion. Only one object has been drawn, Line1, but more will be
populated as we move along.

You may change some of the line’s properties, such as the color and width, by
double clicking the “Value” cell.

To set the scale, click on the button with blue lines, located in the middle on the
right.
Enter 4 meters as the scale for the line and say you’re sure. Press OK and the scale of the floor plan is set.

You can delete Line1 if you wish by using the trash can button on the Object List Editor. The
scale is already set and will not revert if this object is deleted.

This button is used to open the entry window if it has been closed.

The ruler button can now be used to measure distances on the workspace.

Distances from every source to a given calculation point are automatically found using the coordinates
of the image area and Pythagorean’s theorem.

Selecting objects

The toolbar at the top allows the user to select which object to draw. One may also go into the tools
menu to select from drawing objects.
In this case, occupied regions are chosen as the drawing object. If you want to switch between objects,
or at any point have trouble, hover the mouse over the button and a tooltip will tell you what the button
does. Of note, the green cursor button allows the user to drag a given object across the screen, while
the others create new objects.

Changing colors

The left button controls the “pen” color and the right button controls the “fill” color. Click on the pen
color button and change the color to blue. This will change the border color of the region. The same can
be done with the fill color.

These buttons circled in red control the global pen and fill colors going forward. The pen color button
will change accordingly
To individually change one object’s color, use the Object List Editor window and double click the cell you
want to change (in this case, the pink or blue cell).

Note that colors do not change the calculation or results at all.

Regions

RadShield regions are used to identify areas which people occupy. They are rectangles the user draws in
each room to define design goal (mGy wk-1) and occupancy factor. When a calculation is performed on a
point inside that region, RadShield pulls the design goal and occupancy factor from that region to
calculate transmission factor (B) and barrier thickness (x). Do not have two regions with different design
goals and/or occupancy factors overlap.

To select a region, you may either use the top toolbar button or the tools pulldown menu. Next
time you click, drag and release on the workspace, a region will be created.
Put the cursor on the workspace, then click, drag and release to make a rectangle. Fine adjustments and
resizing can be made using the right mouse button and grabbing a corner of the region.

Make sure the region is highlighted in the Object List Editor and look at the Entry Window to see the
available options. Here you can enter the design goal and occupancy factor for the selected region. If
you are unsure or forget the occupancy factor for a particular area, a formatted lookup table from NCRP
147 is provided. You may also enter a description of the area if you would like.
X-ray tubes

X-ray tubes in RadShield are expressed as small circles with an accompanying ellipse representing the
patient. NCRP 147 treats the x-ray tube and the patient as point sources of radiation, and inverse square
falloff of the air kerma is assumed for all calculations.

To draw an x-ray tube, select the button on the top toolbar or in the tools menu and click on the

screen where it should be. Select the green cursor , and make sure the tube is highlighted on the
Object List Editor, and drag the x-ray tube to the desired location.

When the tube is drawn, the patient is represented by a yellow ellipse:

The patient location is the same location as the x-ray tube by default. To assign properties to the x-ray
tube, such as number of exams, source-to-patient distance, primary direction, and so on, highlight
Tube1 on the Object List Editor. Here, one can control the source and patient location. Note that the
primary direction is in units of degrees and follows the unit circle.

90

180 0

270
If the user indicates that the tube is pointed at the floor or ceiling, the patient will be placed on top of
the tube as viewed from above.

Walls

Walls are drawn as straight lines on the workspace. To create a wall barrier, select the button and
click on the starting point of the wall, then drag and release at the ending point. To resize the wall, you
may use the right mouse button and make fine adjustments by dragging an endpoint to the desired
location.

The shielding properties assigned to the wall include workload distribution and material selections. To
select these, make sure the appropriate wall is highlighted in the Object List Editor. The figure below
shows the dialog box for assigning workload distribution and air kerma at 1 m incident on the Wall1. In
this example, the radiation incident on Wall1 is a mixture of leakage, forward scatter and primary
radiation. Materials are chosen on another tab.
Materials may be selected by clicking on the second tab.

I prefer blue walls so they do not blend in with the usually black walls on the background image. The
colors you want are up to you and do not affect the calculation.

Doors

Doors are similar to walls in the properties you can assign to them. To create a door, press the
button and draw just as you would a wall. You can draw them directly on top of walls or standing alone.
To assign workload distribution for a door, make sure the appropriate door is highlighted in the Object
List Editor.

The figure below illustrates the resulting dialog box for the door in green.

Sampling

RadShield calculates kerma, transmission factor, and barrier thickness at spatially distributed points
beyond user drawn walls and doors, and reports the maximum values for each barrier in the results
window. NCRP report 147 suggests calculating at 0.3 m beyond barriers, as most people are assumed to
not sit or stand directly against the wall while they’re in a given room.

The default “separation distance” between calculation points and walls/doors is 0.3 m. The separation

distance may be adjusted by pressing the button.

The resulting dialog box:

If we take a closer look at the workspace, we see a dotted line 0.3 m beyond the barrier. At each dot,
RadShield performs a shielding calculation (air kerma, transmission, material thickness). By performing
many such calculations and reporting the maximum value, we reduce the likelihood of making an error
in selecting the most stringent calculation point.

If another point on the floor plan requires investigation and was not sampled, the user may press the
middle mouse click button (pressing down on the mouse wheel) and get a quick calculation of the kerma
and thickness.

At this point in the crosshair, the kerma is 25.04 mGy and the lead thickness required to achieve P/T is
0.38 mm. Floor and ceiling calculations will be discussed later; at this point, we have not entered the
necessary information.

To decrease or increase the density of the sample points, simply drag the sampling density slider to the
left or the right.
You may also notice that regions not adjacent to a drawn wall will be sampled within their own areas.
For example, suppose the office area beyond wall 4 wraps around to the left of the staff restroom. Since
this is an area whose P/T may be considerably less than the region next to the wall, it is sampled
automatically at 0.3 m within its boundary. Of course, you must define design goal and occupancy factor
in this region to calculate shielding requirements.

Calculation

The following process is performed for each calculation point on the floor plan, as also described in
Example 5.4 and Appendix C of NCRP report 147:
To calculate across the floor plan at the sampled points, one can press ctrl + E or the button.
You may notice blue and red circles on the sampled lines. The blue points represent the maximum
thickness point for a given wall, and the red point indicates the maximum kerma point. Note that the
max thickness and kerma points may not be in the same location due to differences in energy spectrum.

Finally, a maximum point may be located in a non-adjacent region. Referring back to our hypothetical
example in the previous section, we see that the office contains the maximum thickness point (P/T =
0.02 mGy/wk).
As the number of walls and regions increases, there may be ambiguity at times as to which maximum
thickness point belongs to which wall. Simply highlight the row of the wall in question in the results
window to reveal its corresponding maximum thickness point. The point will turn from blue to green.
Floor and ceiling calculations

Calculations for the floor and ceiling are similar to those done for walls and doors. Air kerma,
transmission and material thickness is solved using the same iterative process after itemizing
contributions from each source. The differences are:

1. Instead of sampling a parallel line, we sample a plane parallel to the floor or ceiling barrier, at
some separation distance defined by the user.
2. The user is asked to enter distances in the z direction (in and out of the page). Walls and doors
do not require any distance measurements aside from setting the scale.
3. Floor and ceiling shielding variables are entered via dedicated subGUIs, either by using the
“Floor and Ceiling” pulldown menu, buttons on the List Editor, or by pressing ctrl + F or ctrl + C.
Floor calculation geometry:
Thus, the z-distances in RadShield in floor calculations are defined programmatically as:

ztube = bcpd + int space + tbd;

if (tube pointed at floor)

zpatient = ztube – source to patient distance

if (tube pointed at ceiling)

zpatient = ztube + source to patient distance

if (tube pointed at wall)

zpatient = ztube

Note: the source-to-patient distance and where the tube is pointed are defined in the tube-specific
subgui, to double check you must highlight the tube to see the information in entry window.

See the Tube section for more information.

The z-distances are fixed for the floor and ceiling calculation. As the calculation plane is sampled, x and y
are calculated on the fly. The plane beneath the floor and ceiling barrier is swept from left to right in
raster fashion, each time recalculating x and y distances. Note that the sample plane is superimposed on
the workspace, and the calculation plane is actually the z-distance in or out of the page.
As per the wall and door calculations, the user must enter the workload distribution for each tube in
their respective tabs.

As a quick example, let all three sources have the Rad Room (all barriers) workload distribution with
leakage + sidescatter. One can create a kerma heat map of the results to overlay onto the workspace in
the “Sampling and Display” tab.
One may also select a smaller sampling area if it’s not necessary to calculate across the entire floor plan.
The minimum sampling area will be the bounding box in x and y which contains all the sources.

Ceiling calculations are performed nearly the same way.

Thus, the z-distances in RadShield in ceiling calculations are defined programmatically as:

ztube = bcpd + int space + tbd;

if (tube pointed at floor)

zpatient = ztube + source to patient distance

if (tube pointed at ceiling)

zpatient = ztube - source to patient distance

if (tube pointed at wall)

zpatient = ztube
Saving and Loading

The placement and properties of all the drawn objects (walls, regions, x-ray tubes, etc) can be saved and
loaded for future use. To save, press the floppy disk button to “Save As” a new file

RadShield will save the locations, properties, and colors of all the drawn objects on the canvas in xml
format. The storage file is an xml text file ending with .rad.

To load in a previous plan, press the folder button “Open” and navigate to the directory where the file is
located.

The file navigator will filter for .rad files only.

Helpful tips

If you want to delete an object, simply highlight it on the Object List on the left hand window and press
the trash can button. A very helpful tip is that ctrl + Z will undo a drawn object, and ctrl + Y will redo an
object.

If you want to resize an object, use the right mouse button to grab a point and drag to change the size.

To perform a point calculation, press the mouse wheel, or center click, on the point you wish to
investigate.

I start out drawing regions. The default border color is black, and the default fill color is semi-
transparent red. To change the color, find the two buttons next to the green cursor.

There are a few other features to explore in the Advanced menu.

Set all workloads allows the user to assign the same workload to every wall. This is particularly useful for
fluoroscopy and mammography rooms that will have the same workload incident on each wall.

Kerma plot will create a pop up window of selected walls to see the kerma plotted with distance.

Heat maps will bring an interface that allows the user to see the distribution of kerma or barrier
thickness overlayed onto the floor plan using jet map lookup table.

Real time drawing will allow user to continuously update the calculation as an object is dragged across
the screen. This becomes cumbersome as the number of calculation points and x-ray sources gets large.

Oblique incidence considers path length through walls and doors. Best to only use this for materials that
do not generate considerable scatter within them.

Color code regions is very helpful. The regions will map based on occupancy factors. High occupancy
regions are “hot” and low occupancy regions are “cold”

Options opens a menu of visual preferences where user can turn on or off various drawing features.
Using Isodose Maps

Hopefully the NCRP 147 example with the radiographic room was a helpful primer for using RadShield.
More examples may be found in the File drop down menu to become more familiar. This next subject
deals with using and importing isodose maps into RadShield.

Note: No guarantee of accuracy or reliability is made with importing or using isodose maps. This is
purely for investigative use only.

In the absence of data, one may be inclined to use vendor provided isodose maps. Isodose maps were
scanned from their respective vendor reference manuals and used to create scaled data in the form
points with respect to isocenter for CT scanners. Examples are provided on our website
www.radshield.org. The files themselves are collections of points separated by semicolons, and the
“header information” is contained in the filename itself. For example, Optima-body-horiz-10.4uGy
corresponds to the GE Optima CT660 scanner, using the 32 cm CTDI body phantom, in the horizontal
plane, containing points where the scatter is 10.4 µGy per 100 mAs.

Using RadShield, first draw a CT scanner and switch to

the “Isodose Curves” tab:

Here we see the button in the center to select isodose

map files. Press it and navigate to their directory. Click
on one file and all the files in the folder will be
imported automatically. Press open and every file in the
folder will get assigned to this CT scanner:

Press Submit All on the entry window and you should see the isodose curves emanate from the selected
CT. Be sure to select this isodose method for calculation to enable their use.
In this example, red curves correspond to head scans, and blue curves correspond to body scans. To
rotate angle, click on the “Preferences” tab on the Entry Window and use the slider to rotate the
scanner. You may also type it directly into the Object List Editor in the cell next to “Angle”

Calculation using Isodose Maps

The intended use of isodose maps vary between vendors. Some vendors may specify a scale of dose per
100 mAs, and others may have a different meaning behind the curves, such as “representative scans.” It
is therefore up to the user to apply an overall scaling factor when using isodose curves.

For the GE Optimal CT660 scanner, the body isodose curve is defined for one axial rotation at 140 kVp,
100 mAs, 1 second rotation, and 40 mm collimation. It is no small feat to find the appropriate scaling
factor for a variety of scan conditions (smaller collimations, scans using 120 kVp, scaling mAs, protocols
scanning with and without contrast, applying helical pitch corrections, etc.). It is up to the medical
physicist to determine how many times the tube goes around the patient body while emitting
equivalent 100 mAs of radiation at 4 cm collimation, and this is the total multiplying factor one should
apply in the isodose curve tab in the Entry Window.

Lines beyond barriers are still sampled and calculations take place at each sample point. For each
sample point, a scanline is drawn from the isocenter to the calculation point. Points on the isodose
curve that intersect or are close to the scanline are found, and data is used to calculate kerma. The data
is in the form (x, y), where x is the radial distance of the isodose map intersection point to the CT
scanner isocenter, and y is the kerma value represented by the curve (e.g. 10 µGy/100 mAs).

The points on the isodose curves are found using the scanline, and an array of points is built up for a
given calculation point. Two arrays are made in this example, each corresponding to head scans and
body scans. To calculate kerma, we fit the (x,y) data to a power law (credit to Wolfram MathWorld):

Finally, the distance from the isocenter and calculation point is used to find the kerma:

𝐾ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 (𝑑) = 𝐴ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 ∗ 𝑑𝐵ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑

𝐾𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 (𝑑) = 𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 ∗ 𝑑𝐵𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦

 𝐾𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = 𝑀𝐹ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 ∗ 𝐾ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 + 𝑀𝐹𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 ∗ 𝐾𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦

Where MF’s are multiplying factor entered in the Isodose Curves tab for this CT scanner.

Using the BIR 2000 Method

To use the BIR 2000 method, the appropriate checkbox and isodose curve method must both be
checked. Please refer to the British Institute of Radiology (2000) shielding for diagnostic radiology
publication for more information1. In short, isodose maps are used in this publication by overlaying them
onto the floor plan, and considering two possibilities:

1. If calculation point is beyond all the isodose curves

Use inverse square law to from the nearest isodose curve point to the calculation
point to calculate kerma.
In this example, the kerma values from the outermost curve would be inverse
square corrected by (3m/4m)2 for head scans and (2m/4m)2 for body scans.
 2. If calculation point is between two curves

Interpolate between two nearest isodose curves – we use linear interpolation

Preferences

In the preferences tab there are several options. The first four checkboxes are visual preferences, you
may select whether you want the curves shown on the screen, or whether to show which points were
used in the calculation. These are simply visual preferences and do not affect the results.

The sliders below allow selection of isodose curve width and CT scanner angle.

The bottom selections may affect the calculation and are discussed in more detail below.
 Mirroring: For some of our datasets, there can
be holes in the curves that manifest as
missing data for a given scatter angle. This
isn’t so much an issue now but in the past
there were some curves that weren’t
complete all the way around. To correct for
this, we allowed the user the option to take
the mirror image of a scanline for each data
point and report whichever kerma gives the
maximum.

Mirroring assumes the isodose curves should ideally be symmetric with respect to the couch. This seems
reasonable since the CTDI phantom is often used and is symmetric as well. There are a few advantages
to mirroring: 1) the option to be conservatively safe. If mirroring in selected, RadShield uses the original
scanline and the mirrored scanline to create fits to axb, calculates air kerma and required thickness for
both, and selects the maximum value for air kerma, 2) for sparse data, if the scanline isn’t finding a
proper number of points to do the fits to, or if the quality of fit (R2) is poor, user can reject that scanline
and perform the calculation for the sample point with the fits from the mirrored scanline.

Example of original scanline

and mirrored scanline: If
mirroring is enabled, the data
from each scanline will be
used to create two sets of
power law fits. Whichever
power law fit yields the
largest value of air kerma at
the calculation point will be
used and reported.
This example shows the difference between enabling and disabling mirroring. Note that the mirrored
scanline will not always be used in the calculation; it only happens when the resulting air kerma at the
calculation point is higher for the mirrored scanline than the original. Note the change in results in the
bottom window. (4.35 mGy vs 3.34 mGy).
Floor and ceiling using isodose curves

Some vendors provide vertical isodose curve files in their reference manuals, and some are provided in
the GE Optima CT660. Below is a sideview of the vertical isodose curves in RadShield (they would not be
visualized easily going in and out of the page, so we project them on the x-y plane). Green curves
correspond to head scans, and black curves are body scans.

Calculating kerma in the same line as the couch is straightforward and analogue to what we’ve done for
wall barriers. Unfortunately we only have one plane to use for sampling and calculating an entire plane
parallel to the x-y direction. Off-axis calculations can be somewhat challenging but we use trigonometry
to “tilt” the curves so the calculation point in question (red star) is coplanar with the vertical isodose
curve data. In this way we are able to sample a plane above and below the exam room.

In the ceiling GUI, enter the required data and select “Isodose_Radshield” method to use power law fits.
Below is a heatmap using Isodose_Radshield method and the vertical isodose curves:
The vertical isodose curves are likely not sampled as densely as the ones we have available for the
horizontal plane. If we click the checkbox to use the horizontal plane curves (effectively rotating the
horizontal curves 90°), we may get a better fill for some points RadShield had difficulty getting fits:

1
Radiation Shielding for Diagnostic X-rays: Report of a Joint BIR/IPEM Working Party, W.J. Sutton DG, Editor.
2000, British Institute of Radiology.