Travel-time ultrasonic computed tomography applied to quantitative 2-D imaging of standing trees: a comparative numerical modeling study

The quality of the Ultrasonic Computed Tomography (UCT) imaging device, in term of spatial resolution, sensitivity or dynamic, is a function of the wavelength, the number of transducers, the ultrasonic field generated and the inversion algorithm. This latter factor was studied using four inversion techniques for the tomography of trees. Two new methods, Partial Least Squares method - PLS, and Layer Stripping - LS, are compared to two classical methods, Filtered Backprojection - FBP, and Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique - SIRT. An original numerical phantom of tree was used and the effects of the variation of the number of transducers and the noise level were analyzed. The PLS was found to converge slowly but reached a high performance for the reconstruction of the projection values (slowness). PLS method was also characterized by a fast computation time. However, the PLS method gave a poor image quality (high sensitivity to noise level and presence of outlier values). The main advantage of the LS method was its high robustness to the noise level. The computing time was however the weakest point of LS method. A combination of the two classic FBP-SIRT methods seemed the most suitable except for the computation time. However, an improvement of the convergence conditions of PLS method (very fast computing time; including also curved rays), with the use of SIRT method, would constitute a promising solution. (Résumé d'auteur