Patent ID: 7782051

Claim:
A method comprising: obtaining magnetic resonance phase data of an object; assigning a phase value to each of a plurality of voxels, the phase values being dependent upon the phase data; dividing the plurality of voxels into at least first and second regions; assigning an initial susceptibility value to each of the voxels of the first region, the initial susceptibility values of the voxels of the first region being identical to each other; assigning an initial susceptibility value to each of the voxels of the second region, the initial susceptibility values of the voxels of the second region being identical to each other; determining which of the plurality of voxels meet a criteria, the criteria being dependent upon a signal-to-noise ratio of the phase values; assigning a revised susceptibility value to each of the voxels of the first region, the revised susceptibility values of the voxels of the first region being identical to each other and being dependent upon the phase data associated with only the voxels that meet the criteria; assigning a revised susceptibility value to each of the voxels of the second region, the revised susceptibility values of the voxels of the second region being identical to each other, different from the susceptibility values of the voxels of the first region, and dependent upon the phase data associated with only the voxels that meet the criteria; and generating an image that is dependent upon the revised susceptibility values.