Patent ID: 8774482

Claim:
A method for generating a pseudo-computed tomography (CT) image volume, comprising: acquiring a first magnetic resonance (MR) image volume (UTE 1 ) using an ultra-short echo time within a range of from 0 to 100 ms; acquiring a second MR image volume (UTE 2 ) using a conventional echo time that is longer than 100 ms; normalizing the acquired UTE 1 and UTE 2 image volumes; creating a first mask for an anatomical structure featured in the normalized UTE 1 image volume and creating a second mask for the anatomical structure featured in the normalized UTE 2 image volume; segmenting bone regions from the normalized UTE 1 and UTE 2 image volumes using the created first and second masks and one or more trained classifiers; and constructing a pseudo-CT image from the normalized UTE 1 and UTE 2 image volumes, the created first and second masks, and the segmented bone regions.