The purpose of this paper is to design, develop and implement an inexpensive visible light CT scanner for educational purposes. Visible light CT scanners cannot image the internal structure of objects; however, the external (periphery) outline can be obtained utilizing similar techniques of data collection and resolution. The constituent physical components of both types of scanners are the same. The x-ray, as well as light CT scanners, have a source, detectors, a mechanical support platform called the gantry, appropriate data collection circuitry, a computer with reconstruction algorithms and data acquisition capabilities and user interface software. A menu-driven Lab Windows graphical user interface is designed to monitor and control the system. 24-sensor arrays of detectors are interfaced to the National Instruments PC-DIO-24 data acquisition board. The detector data are used to reconstruct a cross-sectional image of the scanned object. A stepper motor is used to scan objects for a 360 rotation and another stepper motor is used for the longitudinal (z-axis) scanning of objects.
