2018 Volume 53 Issue 3 Pages 103-107
In electron tomography the ‘missing wedge’ problem due to limited specimen tilt angles is crucial. In addition, reduction of the number of projection images is highly desired. In this article, a novel reconstruction method using an image gray-level quantization unit (QU) is described, which was devised to resolve the issues. A digital image consists of QUs which are stacked in each pixel for making a brightness. Therefore, it is thinkable that a tomography image is reconstructed by arranging discrete QUs in three-dimensionally, where the 3 axes are two for the image plane and one for the gray-level. Here, the total number of QUs can be approximately determined from the projection theory. Then, a solution which minimize an error calculated from a set of given projection data gives a unique one. As a result of computer model-based simulations and an experiment with a complex nano-particle, successful reconstruction images unaffected by missing wedge problem were obtained. Furthermore, even though a relatively small number of projection images were given to the method, almost the same images output.
