Patent ID: 7894572

Claim:
A tomographic apparatus comprising: at least two x-ray sources that rotate about and alternately emit radiation into an imaging region, wherein the at least two x-ray sources emit radiation from a first set of angular positions during a first data acquisition cycle and from a different set of angular positions during a subsequent data acquisition cycle, wherein during the first data acquisition cycle a first of the two sources rotates around the image region and is turned on and off a plurality times and emits radiation at a first plurality of angles and a second of the two sources rotates around the image region and is turned on and off a plurality times and emits radiation at a second different plurality of angles, and, during the subsequent acquisition cycle the first of the two sources rotates around the image region and is turned on and off a plurality times and emits radiation at the second different plurality of angles and the second of the two sources rotates around the image region and is turned on and off a plurality times and emits radiation at the first plurality of angles; at least two sets of detectors that each detect primary radiation emitted by a corresponding one of the at least two x-ray sources and produce data representative of the detected radiation; and an interleaver that selectively interleaves the data associated with the first and the subsequent data acquisition cycle to form a reconstruction data set.