Method and apparatus for computed tomography imaging

A modular system for reconstructing diagnostic images, the system comprising:

• a high speed communications bus;
• a plurality of processing PC's connected with the bus;
• a first gantry for acquiring electronic data indicative of an internal region of a subject;
• a first acquisition PC connected to the first gantry and the bus and programmed to (1) control the first gantry, (2) acquire the electronic data from the first gantry, (3) perform limited processing of the electronic data, (4) distribute at least some of the electronic data to processing PC's, and (5) communicate with the processing PC's to cooperatively perform reconstruction operations on the data to generate image representations;
• a first non-volatile memory connected with the first acquisition PC for storing the electronic data from the first gantry;
• a second gantry for acquiring electronic data indicative of an internal region of a subject;
• a second acquisition PC connected to the second gantry and the bus and programmed to (1) control the second gantry, (2) acquire the electronic data from the second gantry, (3) perform limited processing of the electronic data, (4) distribute at least some of the electronic data to the processing PC's, and (5) communicate with the processing PC's to cooperatively perform reconstruction operations on the data to generate image representations;
• a second non-volatile memory connected with the second acquisition PC for storing the electronic data from the second gantry;
• and
• at least one display terminal for converting electronic image representations reconstructed from the electronic data from the first and second gantries into a human viewable display.

A method for reconstructing at least one diagnostic image from diagnostic imaging data, the method comprising:

• defining a first computational pipeline;
• dividing the first computational pipeline into a plurality of first execution units;
• distributing the first execution units across a symmetric multi-processor system;
• processing first diagnostic imaging data using the first execution units;
• and
• combining results of the plurality of first execution units to obtain a first image reconstruction.

An apparatus for performing diagnostic imaging, the apparatus comprising:

• an imaging scanner;
• a non-volatile memory that receives and stores imaging data produced by the imaging scanner;
• a plurality of general purpose processors;
• and
• a storage medium storing a computer program, the storage medium and the plurality of processors cooperating to selectively execute the computer program to effectuate an image reconstruction method for reconstructing the imaging data produced by the imaging scanner, the reconstruction method including:
• defining a plurality of execution units, each execution unit performing a selected reconstruction task,
• distributing the execution units among the plurality of general purpose processors, and
• executing the execution units using the general purpose processors to compute the image reconstruction.