[en] Panoramic radiography with which only structures within a certain image layer are in focus and others out of focus on the panoramic image has become a popular imaging technique especially in dentistry. However, the major drawback to the technique is a mismatch between the structures to be focused and the predefined image layer mainly due to the various shapes and sizes of dental arches and/or to malpositioning of the patient. These result in image quality typically inferior to that obtained using intraoral radiographic techniques. In this paper, to overcome these difficulties, we suggest a new panoramic reconstruction algorithm, the so-called adaptive panoramic tomography (APT), capable of reconstructing multifocal image layers with no additional exposure. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, we performed systematic simulation studies with a circular rotational movement and investigated the image performance.

[en] The most popular reconstruction algorithm for cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is based on the computationally-inexpensive filtered-backprojection (FBP) method. However,that method usually requires dense projections over the Nyquist samplings, which imposes severe restrictions on the imaging doses. Moreover, the algorithm tends to produce cone-beam artifacts as the cone angle is increased. Several variants of the FBP-based algorithm have been developed to overcome these difficulties, but problems with the cone-beam reconstruction still remain. In this study, we considered a compressed-sensing (CS)-based reconstruction algorithm for low-dose, high-quality dental CBCT images that exploited the sparsity of images with substantially high accuracy.We implemented the algorithm and performed systematic simulation works to investigate the imaging characteristics. CBCT images of high quality were successfully reconstructed by using the built-in CS-based algorithm, and the image qualities were evaluated quantitatively in terms of the universal-quality index (UQI) and the slice-profile quality index (SPQI).We expect the reconstruction algorithm developed in the work to be applicable to current dental CBCT systems,to reduce imaging doses, and to improve the image quality further.