Ring Artifacts Removal Based on Implicit Neural Representation of Sinogram Data

Inconsistent responses of X-ray detector elements lead to stripe artifacts within the sinogram data, which subsequently manifest as ring artifacts in the reconstructed computed tomography (CT) images, severely degrading image quality. This paper presents a novel method for correcting stripe artifacts in the sinogram data by separating the sinogram into an Ideal Sinogram (IS) and Stripe Artifacts (SA), with both components parameterized through Implicit Neural Representations (INR). The proposed method leverages INR to correct defective pixel response values using implicit continuous functions while simultaneously learning stripe features in the angular direction of the sinogram data. These two components, IS and SA, are combined within an optimization constraint framework, achieving unsupervised iterative correction of stripe artifacts in the projection domain. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms current state-of-the-art techniques in effectively removing ring artifacts while maintaining the clarity and fidelity of CT images, thereby enhancing the overall diagnostic quality of CT imaging.