Virtual radiographies and images of homogeneous dose regions taken from human voxel-based models

Full text: This work describes the properties of the Monte Carlo program MCvoxEL, developed in a graphic environment, that calculates absorbed dose distributions in voxel-based phantoms. The segmentation of organs and tissues is performed by painting tomographic images, and by assigning a different color to each organ or tissue of interest. Two voxel-based models (head-and-neck and chest) were built using this new approach. The way the voxels are stored in the RAM allows for a fast access of these data by the Monte Carlo code MCvoxEL. The graphical capabilities of the McvoxEL code facilitate image reconstruction with a graphical output of results, like visualized regions of absorbed fractions, specific absorbed fractions, absorbed dose per emitted particle, and absorbed dose per activity, presented under different points of view, thereby increasing the information to the user. Visualized specific absorbed fractions, virtual monoenergetic X-ray radiographs, and absorbed dose conversion coefficients for photon exposure are presented. (orig.)