Snapshots

X-rays target terrorists

Scientists at The University of Manchester (Manchester, UK; www.manchester.ac.uk) have developed an x-ray technique that could be used to detect hidden explosives, drugs, and human cancers more effectively. Professor Robert Cernik and colleagues at The School of Materials have built a prototype color 3-D x-ray system that allows material at each point of an image to be identified. The technique developed by the Manchester scientists is known as tomographic energy dispersive diffraction imaging (TEDDI). It harnesses all the wavelengths present in an x-ray beam to create probing 3-D pictures. The method makes use of advanced detector and collimator engineering pioneered at Daresbury Laboratory, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and The University of Cambridge.

The technique may reduce the time taken to create a sample scan from hours to just a few minutes. This shorter period would eliminate the problem of radiation damage, allowing biopsy samples to be studied and normal tissue types to be distinguished from abnormal. “Current imaging systems such as spiral CAT scanners do not use all the information contained in the x-ray beam. We use all the wavelengths present to give a color x-ray image. This extra information can be used to fingerprint the material present at each point in a 3-D image,” says Cernik.

Imaging software performs real-time affine functions

Using a technique developed for astronomy, researchers at the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, UK; www.ed.ac.uk) can register complete 3-D image volumes to subpixel accuracy in real time. For the first time, full affine correction can be calculated and applied as an imaging sequence is acquired, reducing subject motion and geometric artifacts from the images. This technology can correct for image distortion and register sequential images to each other, thereby removing motion and other artifacts. The core of the technology is a fast algorithm that can increase image processing by factors of 100 to 1,000,000. This enables processing of data from 3-D images in real time. It is applicable to structural MRI, functional MRI, and other forms of medical imaging.

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Xilinx embeds GigE Vision protocol

At VISION 2007, Xilinx (San Jose, CA, USA; www.xilinx.com) demonstrated an FPGA-based GigE Vision IP core solution using its Spartan-3 generation FPGAs. Designed to meet the needs of machine-vision industry designers, the single-chip solution provides a GigE Vision system solution. A collaboration with Feith Sensor to Image (Schongau Germany; www.feith.de), Finger Lakes Engineering (Dryden, NY, USA; www.fl-eng.com), and Silicon Software (Mannheim, Germany; www.silicon-software.com), the solution addresses the challenge to offer compliant GigE Vision transport. “Silicon Software’s VisualApplets environment eliminates much drudgery associated with HDL programming and enables non-HDL experts to build image-processing chains in days instead of weeks,” says Niladri Roy, senior manager of ISM markets at Xilinx.