Experimental imaging and 3D rendering of absorbed dose means of piled-up dosimetric sheets

A method for experimental achievement of full 3D images of in-phantom absorbed dose in conformal radiotherapy was developed. The dose images of a sequence of phantom layers are obtained by means of gel dosimeters. Wide software was properly developed and optimized to perform all the necessary manipulations to get the interactive rendering of 3D dose distribution, starting from a set of acquired dosimeters´ images. The adopted experimental assessment consists in a planar illumination source and a CCD camera for the acquisition of optical transmission images. After pre-elaboration to improve the reliability of images, as for instance the calibration with a reference standard acquired simultaneously, the software performs pixel-to-pixel image elaboration in order to obtain dose distribution´s matrices. Finally, it achieves volume dose distribution´s reconstruction with interactive possibility to obtain isodose curves and surfaces, dose profiles along beam direction as well as normal to it