Implementation of a point spread function method to analyze flash radiography images: Image enhancement, movie generation, and projection detangling.

This work investigates how one can postprocess a series of flash-generated X-ray radiographs with known point spread functions and collection geometries to produce radiographs with enhanced image quality and/or to approximate a multiframe X-ray movie by spatially correlating temporally sequenced images. To produce images with enhanced quality, one collects multiple individual projections, simultaneously, and then uses the known point spread function and acquisition geometry to correlate and integrate the numerous projections as if they were acquired from approximately the same perspective. If using sources of similar spectral characteristics, the outcome correlates with that which would be produced from a multiflash integration, where one benefits from an increase in flux of X-ray photons. If using sources of different spectral characteristics, a composite radiograph can be produced where the unique source spectrum can be matched to known material absorption cross-sections to accentuate radiographic features within the target material. To produce multiframe movies, similar mathematics are applied to images collected throughout a timespan over which the object changes. The aforementioned processes' mathematics and examples are demonstrated for the case in which the individual projections are completely separable on the detector with no overlap. Finally, a potential method is discussed for separation of images in the case where multiple radiograph projections are overlapped and entangled on the detector.