Patent ID: 7705314

Claim:
A PET system comprising: an imaging volume configured to receive an object to be scanned; at least one gamma camera positioned to receive a plurality of gamma rays emitted from the object; and a computer coupled to the gamma camera, said computer configured to: generate a first set of sinogram data corresponding to the plurality of gamma rays; compress the first set of sinogram data; store the compressed sinogram data in a file; read the compressed sinogram data from the file into memory; generate a second set of sinogram data corresponding to the plurality of gamma rays; decompress the compressed sinogram data; modify the decompressed sinogram data based on the second set of sinogram data; recompress the modified decompressed sinogram data; write the recompressed sinogram data from memory to the file; generate a compressed PET time of flight (TOF) sinogram corresponding to the recompressed sinogram data; and reconstruct a TOF image using the compressed PET TOF sinogram.