A new method in diffraction-enhanced imaging computed tomography (DEI-CT) that follows the idea developed by Chapman et al. [Chapman D, Thomlinson W, Johnston R E, Washburn D, Pisano E, Gmur N, Zhong Z, Menk R, Arfelli F and Sayers D 1997 Phys. Med. BioL 42 2015] in 1997 is proposed in this paper. Merged with a "reverse projections" algorithm, only two sets of projection datasets at two defined orientations of the analyzer crystal are needed to reconstruct the linear absorption coefficient, the decrement of the real part of the refractive index and the linear scattering coefficient of the sample. Not only does this method reduce the delivered dose to the sample without degrading the image quality, but, compared with the existing DEI-CT approaches, it simplifies data-acquisition procedures. Experimental results confirm the reliability of this new method for DEI-CT applications.
Diffraction enhanced imaging (DEI) has been widely applied in many fields, especially when imaging low-Z samples or when the difference in the attenuation coefficient between different regions in the sample is too small to be detected. Recent developments of this technique have presented a need for a new software package for data analysis. Here, the Diffraction Enhanced Image Reconstructor (DEIReconstructor), developed in Matlab, is presented. DEIReconstructor has a user-friendly graphical user interface and runs under any of the 32~bit or 64- bit Microsoft Windows operating systems including XP and WinT. Many of its features are integrated to support imaging preprocessing, extract absorption, refractive and scattering information of diffraction enhanced imaging and allow for parallel-beam tomography reconstruction for DEI-CT. Furthermore, many other useful functions are also implemented in order to simplify the data analysis and the presentation of results. The compiled software package is freely available.