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Vol: 55(69) No: 4 / December 2010 

GPGPU Based Acceleration of the Single Scatter Simulation Algorithm for Positron Emission Tomography
Ákos Szlávecz
Department of Control Engineering and Information Technology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, H-1117 Budapest, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, e-mail: szlavecz@iit.bme.hu, web: http://www.iit.bme.hu
Zoltán Puskás
Department of Control Engineering and Information Technology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, H-1117 Budapest, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, e-mail: zpuskas@iit.bme.hu
Balázs Benyó
Department of Control Engineering and Information Technology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, H-1117 Budapest, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, e-mail: bbenyo@iit.bme.hu


Keywords: Positron Emission Tomography, Single Scatter Simulation, GpGPU, CUDA, Compton scattering, High performance computing

Abstract
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a widely used and powerful metabolic imaging technique for functional diagnosis of organs. Compton scattering is a physical effect that results in distortions in the reconstructed image. The model based, so-called, Single Scatter Simulation (SSS) algorithm is an appropriate solution for scatter correction. However, the SSS algorithm is extremely computation intensive. The application of the SSS algorithm in clinical environment requires the application of high performance computing (HPC) techniques. In this work we give a survey about different high performance computing techniques and introduce the selection process of optimal HPC platform for the implementation of the Single Scatter Simulation algorithm. As a conclusion the selected platform is the GPU. The SSS algorithm has been implemented and verified for the selected HPC platform. Using the GPU the required execution time became 160 times less compared to the CPU based version but further capabilities for acceleration still remained in the implementation.

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