H Zaidi, C. Labbe, and C. Morel
Abstract
The many applications of Monte Carlo modelling in PET arouse to increase the accuracy and computational speed of Monte Carlo codes. The accuracy of Monte Carlo simulations strongly depends on cross-section libraries used for photon transport calculations. Furthermore, large amounts of CPU time are required to obtain meaningful simulated data. We present a comparison of different photon cross-section libraries together with the optimisation of the computing time performances of the 3D PET Monte Carlo simulator Eidolon using a MIMD parallel architecture.
Different photon cross-section libraries and parametrizations show quite large variations as compared to the most recent LLNL96 nuclear data files for energies from 1 keV to 1 MeV. Together with the optimisation of the computing time performances of the Monte Carlo software, photon transport in 3D PET could be efficiently modelled to better understand scatter correction techniques. In implementing Eidolon on a parallel architecture, a linear increase in computing speed was achieved with the number of computing nodes.
Key Words: Monte Carlo, 3D PET, photon cross section library, image reconstruction, parallel computer.
Conf. Proc. SPIE's International Symposium on Medical imaging 1999, San Diego, USA 21-26 February 1999, pp 582-593