Taking a virtual X-ray

A Teesside University lecturer has created radiography software that allows students to take a "virtual" X-ray in a safe and controlled way without getting near a patient or an X-ray machine.

For his efforts, Philip Cosson, a senior lecturer in medical imaging at the university, has been named joint winner of the 2007 Learning Technologist of the Year Award by the Association for Learning Technology.

The program he developed, which is now being used at Teesside, is also being marketed by his own university spin-out company Shaderware.

The virtual radiography software uses CT data of humans from the US National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project from which it generates simulated radiographs based on parameters such as patient position and orientation, tube location and angulation, as well as technical factors such as tube voltage, current and exposure time - all of which are controlled by the student.

The software traces the path of a virtual x-ray beam as it travels from the tube to the sensor through the virtual human being. For a representative set of rays striking the sensor, the software calculates how the original beam intensity would have been attenuated, given its individual path through the virtual human. Based on the intensity of the attenuated beam, a grayscale image is then generated based on a simulated receptor response curve.