Conebeam scanners

You have probably all heard of them but do you know exactly what they are? One of the most important functions of a cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) system is to reproduce a three-dimensional structure and represent that structure as an accurate two-dimensional cross-section on a monitor.

There are several characteristics that affect how well a CBCT system performs this task. Spatial resolution, contrast resolution, linearity, noise and artefacts are the primary characteristics that affect image quality in CBCT. Enhancing or suppressing any of these characteristics depends on the imaging interests and the region of interest being scanned.

Cone beam images provide undistorted and accurate dimensional views of the dental anatomy. Panoramic images, by contrast, are magnified and distorted. Magnification by itself is not a problem, as long as one knows or can calculate the magnification factor. Distortion, on the other hand, is the unequal magnification of different parts of the same image.