appendixfordigitalimageacquisitionanddisplay（8页）.docVIP

Appendix for Digital Image Acquisition and Display Note: The following content represents the development of this appendix by the curriculumrevision project group at the time of posting. Glossary of Terms Amorphous silicon (a-Si) – Amorphous materials make flat-panel detectors possible. Early semiconductor technology required single-crystal silicon, which limited the size of electronic devices to the largest single crystal that could be grown. The development of amorphous siliconmaterials, which have the same structure as single crystals over short distances but are less orderedover larger distances, has enabled fabrication of flat-panel thin-film transistor (TFT) arrays largeenough to be used as the basis for all flat-panel x-ray detectors. Amorphous selenium (a-Se) – Amorphous selenium layers have the same structure as single crystals over short distances, but are less ordered over larger distances. As a result, amorphous selenium layers provide uniform x-ray detection over the large areas needed by flat-panel x-ray detectors. Direct-conversion detectors use amorphous selenium. The a-Se can be deposited onto amorphous-silicon TFT arrays. Automatic rescaling (Auto Ranging, rescaling, scaling, normalization) – Software function maps the grayscale to the values of interest (VOI) in the histogram. This feature provides image brightness that is at a prescribed level over a large range of exposure. With some digital systems the image brightness will be consistent for a 50X – 100X change in exposure. Bit depth – The available grayscale for image acquisition and display. Bit depth is equal to 2n, where ‘n’ is the number of bits. Bit depth cannot be changed after equipment is purchased and is avendor-specific system characteristic (i.e., 8 bits = 256 shades of gray, 10 bits = 1,024 shades of gray, 12 bits = 4,096 shades of gray). Complimentary metal-oxide semi-conductor (CMOS) – A photographic detector. None are in use except for intraoral dental imaging. Contras