US Patent 7062006 Computed tomography with increased field of view

A volumetric computed tomography system with a large field of view has, in a forward geometry implementation, multiple x-ray point sources emitting corresponding fan beams at a single detector array. The central ray of at least one of the fan beams is radially offset from the axis of rotation of the system by an offset distance D. Consequently, the diameter of the in-plane field of view provided by the fan beams may be larger than in a conventional CT scanner. Any number of point sources may be used. Analogous systems may be implemented with an inverse geometry so that a single source array emits multiple fan beams that converge upon corresponding detectors.