Cameras shapes for medical imaging Compton cameras

Abstract

The shape of the detectors that comprise a Compton camera largely determines the geometric distribution of the set of data that is measured. It is our hypothesis that the geometric distribution of a set of data determines the informational contents of the data. The objective of the research reported here is to produce evidence that supports this hypothesis. We use a novel approach to measure the informational content of a set of data; namely, we will use the rank of the system matrix, which stems from the data set, as a numerical measure of the informational content of the set. The data was simulated using the surface integral model for Compton camera data. When just the data that scatter parallel to the face of the camera was used, it was found that the resulting system matrix was full rank. When just the data that scatter perpendicular to the face of the camera was used, it was found that the resulting system matrix was substantially less than full rank. Additional work is needed to determine if full rank matrices can be obtained using the conventional camera design that consists of two detectors that are planar shaped and parallel to each other.