Patent ID: 7050527

Claim:
A method for producing an image of an object utilizing a computed tomography (CT) imaging system, said method comprising: axially scanning an object utilizing the CT imaging system to obtain more than 180° of projection data of the object; weighting the projection data according to projection location and pixel location in an image to be reconstructed; and reconstructing the image of the object utilizing the weighted projection data; wherein said weighting the projection data according to the projection location comprises reducing the weighting of contributions of projections 180° apart to reconstructed image pixels and further wherein weighting the projection data comprises applying a weight w(φ−θ)=w(α) defined by a relationship written as: w ⁡ ( α ) = { 1 - 3 ⁢  α η  2 - 2 ⁢  α η  3 , if ⁢ ⁢  α  ≤ η 1 , otherwise , wherein η is a parameter that specifies a transition region; φ is an angle of an image pixel in a polar coordinate system; and θ is the projection angle.