A 3D star shot to determine the gantry, collimator, and couch axes positions

Abstract

A linear accelerator has three independent axes that are nominally intersecting at the isocenter. Modern treatment techniques require the coincidence of these axes to lie within a 1-mm diameter sphere. A solution to verify this requirement is to wrap a film on a cylindrical surface, align the cylinder to the linac's isocenter and gantry axis, and take multiple exposures of slits, rotating either the gantry, collimator, or couch between exposures. The resulting exposure pattern is the 3D equivalent of the 2D star shot and encodes sufficient information to determine each axis’ position in 3D. Moreover, this method uses a single sheet 8“x10” film, a standard film scanner, and a phantom that can be readily built in-house, making a practical solution to this 3D-measurement problem.