Deblurring for non‐2D fourier transform magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract For several non‐2D Fourier transform imaging methods, off‐resonant reconstruction does not just cause geometric distortion, but changes the shape of the point spread function and causes blurring. This effect is well known for projection reconstruction and spiral k ‐space scanning sequences. We introduce here a method that automatically removes blur introduced by magnetic field inhomogeneity and susceptibility without using a resonant frequency map, making these imaging methods more useful. In this method, the raw data are modulated to several different frequencies and reconstructed to create a series of base images. Determination of degree of blur is done by calculating a focusing measure for each point in each base image and a composite image is then constructed using only the unblurred regions from each base image. This method has been successfully applied to phantom and in vivo images using projection‐reconstruction and spiral‐scan sequences. © 1992 Academic Press, Inc.