7th Annual International Symposium on MDCT

San Francisco, June 15-18, 2005

64 from 32: Understanding the Magic

or
The Effects of z-Flying Focal Spot (zFFS)
Technology

Willi Kalender, Ph.D.

Institute of Medical Physics
University of Erlangen
www.imp.uni-erlangen.de
 Acknowledgements
The evaluation of zFFS effects was carried
out by Yiannis Kyriakou, Marc Kachelrieß,
Michael Knaup, Jens U. Krause and Willi A.
Kalender and has been submitted to
European Radiology as a Scientific Note
 How about
doubling the number of slices
without a change
in detector hardware?

The magic lies in

the sampling concept!
„Rotating Vacuum Vessel“ X-ray Tube Technology
with z-flying focal spot

Oil for HV insulation

Rotating vacuum vessel
and cooling
Emitter

Straton tube
Photo:
Courtesy
Deflection coils Motor
of Siemens
Ball bearings
Housing Electron beam

X-rays

Schardt et al. Medical Physics 2004; 31:2699-2706

 A high-power
X-ray tube
(Siemens Straton
rotating vacuum
vessel tube)

A mobile tube?
„A hand-held device?“

A new approach to
electron-beam CT
with perfect control
of focus position!
 Double z-Sampling Technology
z-Flying Focal Spot

Electromagnetic Control Rotating

of the Electron beam Anode

32 detector rows
(64 slices scanned) Sampling distance: 0.3 mm

Kalender WA. Computed Tomography. 2nd ed. Wiley & Sons, New York 2005
 Summary and Conclusion (I)
The novel z-Flying Focal Spot (zFFS)
technology provides
• double sampling as required by
the Nyquist theorem
• measurement of two overlapping slices
per detector row,
i.e. 64 slices for 32 rows
• no change in
dose / image quality relations
Spatial Resolution Measurements:
Modulation transfer function

zFFS increases
spatial resolution
 Impact of the zFFS on z-Resolution
x

0.4 mm 0.4 mm
z

0.5 mm 0.5 mm

0.6 mm 0.6 mm

without zFFS with zFFS

Scan data reconstructed twice, using one and both focal spot positions, resp.

Kalender WA. Computed Tomography. 2nd ed. Wiley-VCH, New York 2005
 Simulated Head Phantom
without zFFS with zFFS

32×0.6 mm 232×0.6 mm

pitch=1.4, (C=30 HU, W=300 HU)

 Windmill Artifacts

click to start movie

without zFFS with zFFS

Reconstruction on the VAMP syngo Explorer; p = 1.2
 Summary and Conclusions (II)
The novel z-Flying Focal Spot (zFFS)
technology provides
• measurement of two overlapping slices
per detector row,
i.e. 64 slices for 32 rows
• no change in
dose / image quality relations
• improved spatial resolution
in the z-direction
• Nyquist conformity and thereby
suppression of windmill artifacts
Thank you for your attention!