Resolution and contrast recovery at depth in planar nuclear images

Resolution and contrast recovery in planar nuclear images at depth with a high purity germanium (HPGe) camera has been achieved through use of a weighted black projection (WBP) method. The algorithm can be derived from Bayes' theorem using the point spread function of the camera. Three variations in the formulation of WBP (one single pass and two iterative procedures) are presented with the characteristics and performance of each method. The evaluation procedure determines the behaviour of signal-to-noise ratio, contrast and texture after application of the algorithm. Both real and simulated cold lesions obtained with the HPGe camera are studied with sizes ranging from 3 mm to 17 mm and background count densities from 100 to 6400 counts cm2. Application of WBP is shown to increase spatial resolution and contrast without a concomitant reduction in signal-to-noise ratio. Images obtained with the HPGe camera and processed with WBP are presented. The algorithm has been applied to the scintillation camera, yielding significant resolution and contrast recovery despite the presence of scatter and textured noise not present in the HPGe images.