Patent ID: 7603156

Claim:
A method for a medical examination using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine having an object positioned therein, said method comprising: polar phase encoding to generate a plurality of signals forming datasets representative of the object by frequency encoding in a Z-direction of a k-space, wherein the datasets form an elliptical grid in polar coordinates in the k-space, the Z-direction substantially parallel to a center axis of the elliptical grid, wherein said phase encoding comprises phase encoding in which each datum is represented as m(a cos(2πd/n)kx+b sin(2πnd/n)ky+ickz, a, b, c, and d are real numbers, m, n, and i are an integers, and kx, ky, and kz being unit basis vectors in the k-space; forming a nested loop by: frequency encoding n 1 times along a kz axis by keeping m, a, d, b, n, and c constant, and varying i; phase encoding radially once by keeping a, d, b, n, and c constant and varying m for every n 1 number of times of frequency encoding; phase encoding radially for n 2 number of times; phase encoding rotationally once by keeping a, b, n, and c constant and varying d for every n 2 number of times of radial phase encoding; and phase encoding rotationally for n 3 number of times; and outputting an image of the object generated using the datasets.