Systems and methods for image quality enhancement for multi-head camera

1. A nuclear medicine (NM) multi-head imaging system comprising:

a gantry defining a bore configured to accept an object to be imaged, the gantry configured to rotate about the bore;

plural detector units mounted to the gantry and configured to rotate as a group with the gantry around the bore in rotational steps, each detector unit configured to sweep about a corresponding axis and acquire imaging information while sweeping about the corresponding axis; and

at least one processor operably coupled to at least one of the detector units, the at least one processor configured to:

determine a region of interest (ROI) of the object to be imaged;

identify a set of detector units from the plural detector units mounted to the gantry;

for the identified set of detector units, determine a sweeping configuration that results in a predetermined percentage of projection pixels receiving information from the ROI;

determine a rotational movement configuration for the gantry using the determined sweeping configuration; and

control the gantry and the set of detector units to utilize the determined rotational movement and sweeping configurations during acquisition of imaging information.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the identified set of detector units is a subset of the plural detector units determined based on at least one of a proximity to the ROI or corresponding attenuation to the detector units.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the predetermined percentage varies among at least some of the detector units.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine the rotational movement configuration to provide a minimal number of views from the identified set of detectors for each rotation step.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine the rotational movement configuration to provide a minimal number of views from the identified set of detectors summed over all rotation steps.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to assign a larger percentage of time spent imaging the ROI to detectors in the identified set than to detectors not in the identified set.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine a total number of rotational steps to be taken by the gantry before determining the sweeping configurations.

8. A method for acquiring imaging information with a nuclear medicine (NM) multi-head imaging system comprising a gantry and plural detector units, the gantry defining a bore configured to accept an object to be imaged, the gantry configured to rotate about the bore, the plural detector units mounted to the gantry and configured to rotate as a group with the gantry around the bore, each detector unit configured to sweep about a corresponding axis and acquire imaging information while sweeping about the corresponding axis, the method comprising:

determining a region of interest (ROI) of the object to be imaged;

identifying a set of detector units from the plural detector units mounted to the gantry;

for the identified set of detector units, determining a sweeping configuration that results in a predetermined percentage of projection pixels receiving information from the ROI;

determining rotational movement configuration for the gantry using the determined sweeping configuration; and

controlling the gantry and the set of detector units to utilize the determined rotational movement and sweeping configurations during acquisition of imaging information.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein identifying the set of detector units comprises identifying a subset of the plural detector units based on at least one of a proximity to the ROI or corresponding attenuation to the detector units.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the predetermined percentage varies among at least some of the detector units.

11. The method of claim 8 , further comprising determining the rotational movement configuration to provide a minimal number of views from the identified set of detectors for each rotation step.

12. The method of claim 8 , further comprising determining the rotational movement configuration to provide a minimal number of views from the identified set of detectors summed over all rotation steps.

13. The method of claim 8 , further comprising assigning a larger percentage of time spent imaging the ROI to detectors in the identified set relative to detectors not in the identified set.

14. The method of claim 8 , further comprising determining a total number of steps to be taken by the gantry before determining the sweeping configurations.

15. A nuclear medicine (NM) multi-head imaging system comprising:

a gantry defining a bore configured to accept an object to be imaged, the gantry configured to rotate about the bore;

plural detector units mounted to the gantry and configured to rotate as a group with the gantry around the bore in rotational steps, each detector unit configured to sweep about a corresponding axis and acquire imaging information while sweeping about the corresponding axis; and

at least one processor operably coupled to at least one of the detector units, the at least one processor configured to:

determine a region of interest (ROI) of the object to be imaged;

for at least one of a number of different total rotational step combinations, determine gaps resulting between detector views for each rotational step combination;

determine a number of rotational steps to be used based on the gaps; and

control the gantry and the set of detector units using the determined number of rotational steps during acquisition of imaging information.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein determining the gaps resulting between the detector views comprises:

determining detector positions and angles for all views of the rotational step combination;

arrange the detector views in bins according to view angle;

for each bin, project each detector view along the view angle to find a start and end position for each corresponding detector;

for each bin, determine the maximum gap between the projected views; and

determine a largest gap of the maximum gaps determined for each bin.

17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the number of rotational steps is determined to satisfy a predetermined maximum threshold gap size.

18. The system of claim 15 , wherein the gap is determined iteratively, wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine resulting gaps for an initial number of rotational steps, compare the resulting gaps to a threshold, and, if the resulting gaps do not satisfy the threshold, increase the number of rotational steps.

19. The system of claim 15 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine a size of the ROI, and determine the number of rotational steps based on the size of the ROI.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to use the determined number of rotational steps as an initial number of rotational steps for an iterative determination of rotational steps.