CT Image Reconstruction of Wood Using Ultrasound Velocities II - Determination of the Initial Model Function of the SIRT Method -

A previous study verified that the SIRT (simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique) method is more efficient than the back-projection method as a CT algorithm for wood. However, it was expected that the determination of the initial model function of the SIRT method would influence the quality of CT image. Therefore, in this study, we intended to develop a technique that could be used to determine an adequate initial model function. For this purpose, we proposed several techniques, and for each technique we examined the effects of the initial model function on the average errors and the CT image at each iteration. Through this study, it was shown that the average error was decreased and the image quality was improved using the proposed techniques. This tendency was most pronounced when the back-projection method was used to determine the initial model function. From the results of this study, we drew the following conclusions: 1) The initial model function of the SIRT method should be determined with careful attention, and 2) the back-projection method efficiently determines the initial model function of the SIRT method.