Synchrotron X-ray Microtomography with Improved Image Quality by Ring Artifacts Correction for Structural Analysis of Insects

Abstract

Ring artifacts are undesirable and complicate the analysis and interpretation of microstructures in synchrotron X-ray microtomography. Here, we propose a new method to improve the image quality of an object by removing the ring artifacts and investigate the efficiency of this process with tomographic images of a dried Tenebrio molitor. In this method, before the tomographic reconstruction, ring artifacts were identified and located in the sinograms as line artifacts. Then, the identified line artifacts were corrected as single point noise via image processing of the original projections. Eventually, the corresponding line artifacts were removed, resulting in reduced ring artifacts in the reconstructed tomographic images. Simulations verified the efficiency of the proposed method. This method was successfully applied for the structural analysis of the insect T. molitor, showing superior performance in reducing ring artifacts in the tomographic image without noticeable loss of structural information.

Ring Artifacts Reduction in CBCT: Pixels Detection and Patch Based Correction

“…These methods have achieved some effects in ring artifacts removal, but some detailed features of the images may be lost during the filtering process [15]. A multistep method based on the detection and correction of the defective pixels can remove ring artifacts more effectively without imparting noticeable distortion in the image [16][17]. However, these methods tend to introduce radioactive artifacts with wrong correction of defective pixels.…”