Volumetric Material Decomposition Using Spectral Diffusion Posterior Sampling with a Compressed Polychromatic Forward Model

Abstract: We have previously introduced Spectral Diffusion Posterior Sampling (Spectral DPS) as a framework for accurate one-step material decomposition by integrating analytic spectral system models with priors learned from large datasets. This work extends the 2D Spectral DPS algorithm to 3D by addressing potentially limiting large-memory requirements with a pre-trained 2D diffusion model for slice-by-slice processing and a compressed polychromatic forward model to ensure accurate physical modeling. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed memory-efficient 3D Spectral DPS enables material decomposition of clinically significant volume sizes. Quantitative analysis reveals that Spectral DPS outperforms other deep-learning algorithms, such as InceptNet and conditional DDPM in contrast quantification, inter-slice continuity, and resolution preservation. This study establishes a foundation for advancing one-step material decomposition in volumetric spectral CT.