APPARATUS AND METHOD TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE POSTION OF A DETECTOR ARRAY AND AN X-RAY TUBE FOCAL SPOT

An x-ray source (30) transmits a beam of x-rays through an examination region (E). A detector (28), in an initial spatial orientation relative to the source, receives the beam and generates a view of image data indicative of the intensity of the beam received. A first accelerometer (40), capable of generating acceleration data in at least one dimension, is associated with the detector. A second accelerometer (42), capable of generating acceleration data in at least one dimension is associated with the source. A position calculator (60) mathematically calculates a position of both the source and detector based on the acceleration data generated by the accelerometers. An image reconstructor (62) receives the relative position data; electronically corrects for any misalignment or change in beam travel distance, and reconstructs the views into a volumetric image representation.