A mobile patient positioning stand having vertical rails allowing a shield to be manually moved up and down to different heights based on the height of anatomy of the patient desired to be imaged. The shield may be positioned at a shield height for a certain height of anatomy of a patient so that markers on the shield identify multiple image areas within the total image area. After the shield is positioned, an image detector and a source of radiation may be vertically positioned to provide images at the multiple image areas. Vertical positioning of the detector may be determined by the markers or by equal height detector alignment markers on the shield. The multiple image areas may be connected by aligning stitching markers in the images, that may be on the shield. This aligning may be done by an automated computer software process that recognizes the stitching markers.
