reconstruction kernel
Mathematical filter applied during CT image reconstruction. Sharp kernels (bone, lung) emphasize edges and high-frequency content at the cost of more noise; smooth kernels (soft tissue, brain) reduce noise at the cost of edge sharpness. Protocol-specific selection is the standard workflow.
Why it matters to buyers: Protocol-specific. A chest CT uses different kernels for lung windows vs mediastinum — same raw acquisition, different recon kernel, different displayed series.
Why it matters to engineers: User-selectable per protocol. Reconstructed images from the same raw scan with different kernels are stored as separate DICOM series. Kernel choice interacts with iterative recon tier and DL recon settings.