A user-friendly LabVIEW software platform for grating based X-ray phase-contrast imaging

Abstract

X-ray phase-contrast imaging can provide greatly improved contrast over conventional absorption-based imaging for weakly absorbing samples, such as biological soft tissues and fibre composites. In this study, we introduced an easy and fast way to develop a user-friendly software platform dedicated to the new grating-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging setup at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China. The control of 21 motorized stages, of a piezoelectric stage and of an X-ray tube are achieved with this software, it also covers image acquisition with a flat panel detector for automatic phase stepping scan. Moreover, a data post-processing module for signals retrieval and other custom features are in principle available. With a seamless integration of all the necessary functions in one software package, this platform greatly facilitate users' activities during experimental runs with this grating based X-ray phase contrast imaging setup. S. Wang et al. / A user-friendly LabVIEW software platform for grating based X-ray phase-contrast imagingcomposites [2][3][4]. The demonstration of a Talbot-Lau interferometer in the hard X-ray region with a conventional low-brilliance X-ray source overcame the problems that impaired a wider use of phasecontrast in X-ray radiography and tomography, representing a great breakthrough in X-ray imaging [5]. It also foresaw many potential applications in biology, medicine, non-destructive testing, food inspection, security devices, etc. [6][7][8][9].A new grating based X-ray phase-contrast imaging system has been designed and assembled at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory of the University of Science and Technology of China. This high-grade precision and sophisticated imaging system is mainly made up of an X-ray tube, an X-ray flat panel detector and three micro-structured gratings, all mounted on multi-dimensional optical displacement tables assembled by 21 motorized stages and an ultra-precision piezoelectric translation stage. The stages are located inside a radiation protection lead room, and can only be manually controlled when the X-ray generator is shut off. However, tedious movements of the stages are needed during experimental runs for grating alignment with X-ray radiation. It is then urgent the development of a remote control package for all the motorized stages. Also automatic image acquisition with the flat panel detector is required, because in phase-stepping scan, dozens of images have to be collected to generate a single phase-contrast projection image and hundreds of projections are needed in the computed tomography for a high-quality 3D reconstruction [10]. Moreover, once we obtain raw images, complex digital image processing has to be performed to retrieve conventional absorption, phase-contrast and dark field images.Typically, the LabVIEW protocol is used to control motorized stages and X-ray tube thanks to the easy availability of hardware drivers [11,12]. C ++ is often utilized to develop a custo...

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