X-ray Computed Tomography Instrument Performance Evaluation, Part II: Sensitivity to Rotation Stage Errors

Abstract

The development of standards for evaluating the performance of X-ray computed tomography (XCT) instruments is ongoing within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) working committees. A key challenge in developing documentary standards is to identify test procedures that are sensitive to known error sources. In Part I of this work, we described the effect of geometry errors associated with the detector and determined their influence through simulations on sphere center-to-center distance errors and sphere form errors for spheres located in the tomographically reconstructed measurement volume. We also introduced a new simulation method, the single-point ray tracing method, to efficiently perform the distance and form error computations and presented data validating the method. In this second part, also based on simulation studies, we describe the effect of errors associated with the rotation stage on sphere center-to-center distance errors and sphere form errors for spheres located in the tomographically reconstructed measurement volume. We recommend optimal sphere center locations that are most sensitive to rotation stage errors for consideration by documentary standards committees in the development of test procedures for performance evaluation.