Patent ID: 8350852

Claim:
An apparatus for tomosynthesis reconstruction and visualization of projection data, comprising: a computerized data processor comprising a raw data processing unit, a reconstruction unit, and an image data processing unit; said data processor comprising an input port supplied with raw 2D projection data, for a plurality of 2D projection, obtained from a detector unit of an x-ray imaging apparatus; said raw data processing unit being configured to load at least one module in said raw data processing unit with said raw 2D projection data as a 3D data block, said at least one module comprising data processing programs, including a 3D tomosynthesis image reconstruction program, and parameters stored in said reconstruction unit and said image data processing unit; said module in said raw data processing unit being configured to process the raw 2D projection data in parallel in said 3D data block by simultaneously filtering all of said 2D projections in said 3D data block in parallel, to obtain processed and filtered data; said at least one module also being configured to reconstruct a tomosynthesis image from the processed said 3D tomosynthesis image reconstruction program and filtered data, according to and said parameters stored in the reconstruction unit; and said module also being configured to cause a 3D volume rendering of the reconstructed tomosynthesis image to be displayed, according to programs and parameters stored in said image generation unit, said 3D volume rendering being comprised of individual slices, and said module being configured to make data for displaying at least some of said slices available before completion of an entirety of the reconstruction of said tomosynthesis image.