Patent ID: 8165377

Claim:
An imaging system to determine a coordinate system of a heart comprising: an imager; and a computer programmed to: acquire a first set of initialization imaging data from an anatomical region of a free-breathing subject, wherein a portion of the first set of imaging data comprises organ data comprising cardiac data; determine a location of a central region of a left ventricle of a heart based on the organ data and a priori information; determine a location of a central region of a right ventricle of the heart based on the organ data and the a priori information; determine a vertical long axis of the heart based on the locations of the central regions of the left and right ventricles; determine a short axis of the left ventricle based on the location of the central region of the left ventricle; acquire a first set of post-initialization imaging data from the free-breathing subject from an imaging plane positioned at an orientation based on the determination of the short axis; and reconstruct at least one image from the first set of post-initialization imaging data.