Comprehensive assessment of nonuniform image quality: Application to imaging near metal.

Purpose: Comprehensive assessment of image quality requires accounting for spatial variations in (i) intensity artifact, (ii) geometric distortion, (iii) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and (iv) spatial resolution, among other factors. This work presents an ensemble of methods to meet this need, from phantom design to image analysis, and applies it to the scenario of imaging near metal.

Methods: A modular phantom design employing a gyroid lattice is developed to enable the co-registered volumetric quantitation of image quality near a metallic hip implant.