Optical digitization of radiographs with a photostimulable phosphor system

The authors of this paper developed a method by which plain radiographs may be digitized using the optical imaging properties of PSP detectors by charging a PSP plate with an initial exposure to a uniform x-ray field and then discharging it by exposure to optical light transmitted through a plain radiograph. A standard PSP plate was exposed to an initial, uniform x-ray exposure of 40 mR, with no attenuating material in the beam. A plain chest radiograph was then placed in contact with the front surface of the PSP plate and both were placed on the surface of a routine view box. Exposures on the view box were made at 2, 5, 10, and 30 seconds. The PCR plate was then placed into the plate reader in the normal fashion. Additional experiments measured linearity of PSP digital value versus film density, image noise, and field uniformity of the optically digitized films