Patent ID: 8792617

Claim:
A method to produce dual energy x-ray data representing a predetermined volume segment of an examination subject comprising: operating an x-ray system with an x-ray voltage in a range from 20 to 35 kVp to irradiate a subject with x-rays, while filtering said x-rays with a single filter consisting essentially of titanium and said single filter having a thickness in a range between 0.5 and 1.2 mm, to produce low-energy x-ray image data of a volume segment of the subject; also operating said x-ray system with an x-ray voltage in a range from 40 to 50 kVp to irradiate the subject with x-rays, while filtering said x-rays with said single filter consisting essentially of titanium and said single filter having a thickness in a range between 0.5 and 1.2 mm, to produce high-energy x-ray image data of said volume segment; and supplying said low-energy x-ray image data and said high-energy x-ray image data to a processor and, in said processor subtracting said low-energy x-ray image data from said high-energy x-ray image data to produce dual energy x-ray image data, and making said dual energy x-ray image data available in electronic form at an output of said processor.