Method to Compute CT System MTF

Abstract

The modulation transfer function (MTF) is the normalized spatial frequency representation of the point spread function (PSF) of the system. Point objects are hard to come by, so typically the PSF is determined by taking the numerical derivative of the system's response to an edge. This is the method we use, and we typically use it with cylindrical objects. Given a cylindrical object, we first put an active contour around it, as shown in Figure 1(a). The active contour lets us know where the boundary of the test object is. We next set a threshold (Figure 1(b)) and determine the center of mass of the above threshold voxels. For the purposes of determining the center of mass, each voxel is weighted identically (not by voxel value).