Systems and methods for adaptive blending in computed tomography imaging

A method, comprising:

• reconstructing a first image volume from a first set of projection data acquired during a scan of a subject;
• reconstructing a second image volume from a second set of projection data acquired during the scan;
• denoising the first image volume to generate a first denoised image volume;
• denoising the second image volume to generate a second denoised image volume;
• blending the first image volume and the first denoised image volume based on noise-neutral blending weights to generate a first noise-adjusted image volume;
• blending the second image volume and the second denoised image volume based on the noise-neutral blending weights to generate a second noise-adjusted image volume;
• and
• blending the first noise-adjusted image volume and the second noise-adjusted image volume based on locational blending weights to generate a noise-neutral blended image.

A system, comprising:

• an x-ray source configured to generate a beam of x-rays towards a subject;
• a detector array comprising a plurality of detector elements configured to detect the beam of x-rays attenuated by the subject;
• and
• a computing device communicatively coupled to the x-ray source and the detector array, the computing device configured with instructions in non-transitory memory that when executed cause the computing device to:
• adaptively blend at least two input image volumes, reconstructed from projection data acquired via the detector array, with different spatially-variant noise characteristics to generate an output image volume with uniform noise throughout the output image volume.