Patent ID: 7869561

Claim:
A method for CT cone beam scanning, comprising: (a) relatively rotating a plurality of alternating cone beam X-Ray radiation sources to an object about a rotation axis, the sources being spaced parallel to the rotation axis, and radiating through a common portion of the object onto a common detector array having axially spaced rows of detector elements, wherein the number of rows is greater than the number of plurality of sources, by at least a factor of two; (b) acquiring from at least a part of the detector, data responsive to radiation attenuated by at least part of a common volume of the object irradiated by the plurality of radiation sources; and (c) collimating the cone beams from two sources of said plurality of sources such that at least 80% of the length irradiated along the rotation axis is used for reconstruction of the object, wherein all of the rows are illuminated by at least two sources.