In a CT system, X-ray photons emitted from an X-ray tube will travel through the object and hit a detector. The detector senses the dose at each pixel of the detector area. This creates digital images while the object is rotated. The reconstruction software calculates virtual slices based on the dose at each location from different angles. The result is called a tomogram. Each pixel in the tomogram represents a density of material, a voxel.

Evolution, and thereby the origin of us human beings, still raises many questions for science. Prof. Dr. John Nyakatura, who holds the chair of 'Comparative Zoology' at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and his young team of junior scientists are focusing on the functional morphology of vertebrates and trying to track down the evolution of early primates. "A key to understanding their evolution seems to be the feet," John Nyakatura explains.

Electromobility confronts the automotive industry with many new challenges. New components sometimes require new test methods to ensure functionality and safety. Research and development are running at full blast and partnerships find solutions that clearly push the current boundaries of what is possible. In a joint project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials and Yxlon International have succeeded for the first time in taking a look into the inside of cast rotors.

Digital radiography is a form of two-dimensional x-ray imaging in which traditional light-sensitive and radiation-sensitive x-ray film and analog hardware have been replaced with a digital image capture device, usually consisting of a flat-panel detector, and computer-based equipment.

Thanks to most recent developments, computed tomography (CT) is now an affordable and efficient
technology for non-destructive testing of workpieces made of a vast variety of materials. While digital radiography provides two-dimensional fluoroscopic images, computed tomography typically rotates the object between the X-ray tube and the flat-panel detector 360° and captures several hundred to well over a thousand X-ray images from various angles.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most revolutionary processes to come along in many years, making a dramatic impact on the industrial market. Also known as 3D printing, AM is a manufacturing technique that builds objects layer by layer using materials such as polymers, metals, and composites. This fast-evolving technology is changing the way engineers think about product design by offering enormous flexibility in what is geometrically possible. However, the more complex the design, the more challenging (and necessary) it can be to inspect in the quality control process.

At the end of July, YXLON International, a company of the Swiss tech holding COMET Group, lent one of their state-of-the-art computed tomography systems to the California Academy of Sciences.  The FF20 CT system will be in use at the institute until January 31st, 2018.