The Separation of Church and State: How to Provide a Clean Interface between Acquisition and Processing

Summary

The boundary between the gamma camera, the acquisition system and the processing system is fuzzy. The gamma camera clearly requires control from the acquisition system for uniformity correction etc, and the camera and acquisition computer cannot really be separated. However, increasingly, it is desirable to be able to separate acquisition from processing, so that the processing computer can be replaced (having a much shorter life), and to be able to mix and match between different manufacturers. This is recognized in both the DICOM standard and Interfile. However experience shows that in particular in SPECT, raw data is difficult to transfer. As part of the COST B2 initiative, a preliminary specification of a clean interface for the transfer of all types of raw data between acquisition and processing has been prepared, together with indications of the constraints that this will impose, for example for centre of rotation correction during reconstruction. This is proposed as an extension to Interfile.