Real-time streaming tomographic reconstruction with on-demand data capturing and 3D zooming to regions of interest

Complex dynamic tomographic experiments at brilliant X-ray light sources require real-time feedback on the sample changes with respect to environmental conditions, selecting representative regions of interest for high-resolution scanning, and on-demand data saving mechanisms for storing only relevant projections acquired by fast area detectors and reducing data volumes. Here the implementation details of a 3D real-time imaging monitoring instrument, with zooming to a volume of interest with easy-to-use visualization via ImageJ, a tool familiar to most beamline users, is presented. The instrument relies on optimized data flow between the detector and processing machines and is implemented on commodity computers. The instrument has been developed at beamline 2-BM of the Advanced Photon Source, where the automatic lens changing mechanism for zooming is implemented with an Optique Peter microscope. Performance tests demonstrate the ability to process more than 3 GB of projection data per second and generate real-time 3D zooming with different magnification. These new capabilities are essential for new APS Upgrade instruments such as the projection microscope under development at beamline 32-ID. The efficacy of the proposed instrument was demonstrated during an in situ tomographic experiment on ice and gas hydrate formation in porous samples.