Sparse-view Reconstruction of Dynamic Processes by Neutron Tomography

As for neutron tomography, hundreds of projections over the range of 0-180 degrees are required to reconstruct the attenuation matrix with the traditional filtered back projection (FBP) algorithm, and the total acquisition time can reach several hours. This poor temporal resolution constrains that neutron tomography is only feasible to investigate static or quasi-static process. Reducing the number of projections is a possible way to improve the temporal resolution, which however highly relies on sparse-view reconstruction algorithms. To assess the feasibility of sparse-view reconstruction for neutron tomography, both simulation and an experiment of water uptake from a piece of wood composite were studied, and the results indicated that temporal resolution of neutron tomography can be improved when combining the Golden Ratio scan strategy with a prior image-constrained sparse-view reconstruction algorithm-PICCS.