# Toolbox concepts¶

## Geometry¶

Most of the operations supported by the ASTRA Toolbox require you to specify what the geometry of the (real or virtual) experimental setup you have used or want to simulate is.

This has two parts: a volume geometry, and a projection geometry. The volume geometry specifies where in 2D or 3D space the sample or phantom is located. It takes the form of a 2D rectangle or 3D box, and is usually centered around the origin.

The projection geometry specifies the location and trajectory of the ray source and detector. The available types of projection geometries are 2D parallel beam, 2D fan beam, 3D parallel beam and 3D cone beam.

## Data¶

Toolbox objects are stored in memory separate from Matlab, and have to be explicitly transferred from/to Matlab matrices.

They come in four varieties: 2D/3D volume data, and 2D/3D projection data.

Data objects are manipulated with the astra_mex_data2d/astra.data2d and astra_mex_data3d/astra.data3d commands. The usage of these commands is illustrated in the available sample scripts.

## Algorithms¶

To operate on data objects, the ASTRA Toolbox defines a number of algorithms. These include the basic forward and backward projection operations, and also various reconstruction algorithms.

To create algorithm objects, use the astra_mex_algorithm/astra.algorithm command. The usage of this command is illustrated in the available sample scripts.