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Main Authors: Zimmermann, Lukas, Rauter, Michael, Schmid, Maximilian, Georg, Dietmar, Knäusl, Barbara
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.02130
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author Zimmermann, Lukas
Rauter, Michael
Schmid, Maximilian
Georg, Dietmar
Knäusl, Barbara
author_facet Zimmermann, Lukas
Rauter, Michael
Schmid, Maximilian
Georg, Dietmar
Knäusl, Barbara
contents Supervised synthetic CT generation from CBCT requires registered training pairs, yet perfect registration between separately acquired scans remains unattainable. This registration bias propagates into trained models and corrupts standard evaluation metrics. This may suggest that superior benchmark performance indicates better reproduction of registration artifacts rather than anatomical fidelity. We propose physics-based CBCT simulation to provide geometrically aligned training pairs by construction, combined with evaluation using geometric alignment metrics against input CBCT rather than biased ground truth. On two independent pelvic datasets, models trained on synthetic data achieved superior geometric alignment (Normalized Mutual Information: 0.31 vs 0.22) despite lower conventional intensity scores. Intensity metrics showed inverted correlations with clinical assessment for deformably registered data, while Normalized Mutual Information consistently predicted observer preference across registration methodologies (rho = 0.31, p < 0.001). Clinical observers preferred synthetic-trained outputs in 87% of cases, demonstrating that geometric fidelity, not intensity agreement with biased ground truth, aligns with clinical requirements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_02130
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Eliminating Registration Bias in Synthetic CT Generation: A Physics-Based Simulation Framework
Zimmermann, Lukas
Rauter, Michael
Schmid, Maximilian
Georg, Dietmar
Knäusl, Barbara
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Supervised synthetic CT generation from CBCT requires registered training pairs, yet perfect registration between separately acquired scans remains unattainable. This registration bias propagates into trained models and corrupts standard evaluation metrics. This may suggest that superior benchmark performance indicates better reproduction of registration artifacts rather than anatomical fidelity. We propose physics-based CBCT simulation to provide geometrically aligned training pairs by construction, combined with evaluation using geometric alignment metrics against input CBCT rather than biased ground truth. On two independent pelvic datasets, models trained on synthetic data achieved superior geometric alignment (Normalized Mutual Information: 0.31 vs 0.22) despite lower conventional intensity scores. Intensity metrics showed inverted correlations with clinical assessment for deformably registered data, while Normalized Mutual Information consistently predicted observer preference across registration methodologies (rho = 0.31, p < 0.001). Clinical observers preferred synthetic-trained outputs in 87% of cases, demonstrating that geometric fidelity, not intensity agreement with biased ground truth, aligns with clinical requirements.
title Eliminating Registration Bias in Synthetic CT Generation: A Physics-Based Simulation Framework
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.02130