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Technology

X-ray security scans go interactive

By Duncan Graham-Rowe

11 August 2010

Video: 3D baggage scans

Âé¶¹´«Ã½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

They can see right through you

(Image: SIPA PRESS/Rex Features)

AIRPORT security staff can spend their entire day staring at two-dimensional, static X-ray scans. Soon, however, they may be able to interact with these images, rotating a scanned object on the screen and even analysing its chemical composition.

It can be difficult to identify objects from the 2D images generated by X-ray scanners, says , head of the Imaging Science Group at Nottingham Trent University, UK. And while the latest X-ray scanners can glean information about the atomic or molecular weight of a substance,…

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