Trans-axial truncation compensation for ct imaging

An imaging apparatus, comprising:

• a rotatable gantry system positioned at least partially around a patient support;
• a radiation source coupled to the rotatable gantry system, the radiation source configured for imaging radiation;
• a radiation detector coupled to the rotatable gantry system and positioned to receive radiation from the radiation source;
• and
• an image processing system configured to:
• receive projection data from the radiation detector, the projection data corresponding to a scan field-of-view (scanFOV), wherein an image reconstructed from the projection data has a reconstruction field-of-view reconFOV0 that is the same as scanFOV, and the image is trans-axially truncated;
• identify a final reconstruction field-of-view (reconFOV) that is larger than the scanFOV;
• reconstruct an image having a reconstruction field-of-view (reconFOVn) using projection data from a virtual scan that precedes the reconstruction (vscanFOVn-1) and estimated data between the vscanFOVn-1 and vscanFOVn, wherein reconFOVn is less than reconFOV;
• generate a progressive refinement for the image;
• reproject the image with the progressive refinement thereby generating a virtual scan vscanFOVn;
• refine the virtual scan vscanFOVn data;
• and
• repeat the reconstruction, generation of the progressive refinement, and reprojection for one or more subsequent reconstructions until reconFOV is reached.