Patent ID: 7916833

Claim:
An extra-oral dental x-ray imaging system comprising: a. a single x-ray source adapted for generating x-rays for an exposure of such x-rays to an object to be imaged; b. a frame mode x-ray imaging device adapted to produce multiple frames during at least part of the exposure, the x-ray imaging device having an active area with a long dimension m and a short dimension n and wherein m/n>1.5, the geometry between the x-ray source and the detector being fixed; c. at least one rotational axis around which at least one of the x-ray source and the imaging device rotates along a spline, the axis being located somewhere between the x-ray source focal point and the x-ray imaging device; d. a manipulator adapted for moving said at least one of the imaging device and the x-ray source between the multiple frames during the exposure about the at least one rotational axis; and e. a processing device for taking inputs of the multiple frames to compose a panoramic image of a layer of the object with a focus depth which is different in a region of interest from a focus depth corresponding to a predetermined panoramic image, wherein the focus depth for the region of interest is determined automatically, wherein the focus depth for the region of interest is determined by the processing device automatically by: calculating plural layers using a laminographic reconstruction of the plural layers; calculating a sharpness measure for each of the plural calculated layers; and based on the calculated sharpness measure, choosing a sharpest layer from among the plural calculated layers for the region of interest to provide for and display a corrected layer for the region of interest defined for said panoramic image as a predetermined anatomical region defined by a predefined geometric path of the single source and detector, patient type, and a predetermined speed profile.