@article{oai:repo.qst.go.jp:00047599,
 author = {Saotome, Naoya and Furukawa, Takuji and Hara, Yousuke and Mizushima, Kota and Tansho, Ryohei and Saraya, Yuichi and Shirai, Toshiyuki and Noda, Koji and 早乙女 直也 and 古川 卓司 and 原 洋介 and 水島 康太 and 丹正 亮平 and 皿谷 有一 and 白井 敏之 and 野田 耕司},
 issue = {4},
 journal = {Medical Physics},
 month = {Apr},
 note = {Purpose: Three-dimensional irradiation with a scanned carbon-ion beam has been performed from 2011 at our facility. We have been developed the rotating-gantry equipped with the scanning irradiation system. The number of combinations of beam properties to measure for the commissioning is more than 7200, i.e. 201 energy steps, 3 intensities, and 12 gantry angles. To compress the commissioning time, quick and simple range verification system is required. In this work, we develop quick range verification system using scintillator and CCD (charge-coupled device) camera and estimate the accuracy of the range verification.
Methods: A cylindrical plastic scintillator block and a CCD camera were installed on the black box. The optical spatial-resolution of the system is 0.2 mm/pixel. The camera control system was connected and communicates with the measurement system that is part of the scanning system. The range was determined by image processing. Reference range for each energy beam was determined by a difference of Gaussian (DOG) method and the 80 percent of distal dose of the depth dose distribution that were measured by a large parallel-plate ionization chamber. We compared a threshold method and a DOG method. 
Results: We found that the edge detection method (i.e., the DOG method) is best for the range detection. The accuracy of range detection using this system is within 0.2 mm, and the reproducibility of same energy measurement is within 0.1 mm without setup error. 
Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrate that our range check system is capable of quick and easy range verification with sufficient accuracy.},
 pages = {1754--1759},
 title = {Range verification system using edge detection method for a scintillator and a CCD camera system},
 volume = {43},
 year = {2016}
}