Development of 36M-pixel micro-CT using digital single-lens reflex camera

A high-resolution, large field-of-view micro-CT system is indispensable for the visualization of fine three-dimensional (3-D) structures of large human lung specimens. It drastically increases the overall number of detector pixels. At the SPring-8 synchrotron radiation facility, a micro-CT system based on a 10M-pixel CCD camera was developed over a decade ago for 3-D specimen imaging of centimeter-sized objects with approximately 7 μm spatial resolution and a field of view of 23.6 mm width × 15.5 mm height. Recent studies require higher spatial resolution and wider field-of-view systems. Detectors with a spatial resolution of around 5 μm can visualize capillaries in the lung specimens. Accordingly, a wide field-of-view micro-CT system with spatial resolution of about 5 μm is under development using a 36M-pixel digital single-lens reflex camera, for 3-D microstructural analysis of the pulmonary lobular anatomy to quantitatively describe relation between the architectures and abnormalities.