Patent ID: 6897655

Claim:
A method of imaging large volumes without resulting slab-boundary artifacts, the method comprising: defining a desired FOV larger than an optimal imaging volume of an MR scanner in at least a first direction; defining desired phase encode locations in at least one dimension perpendicular to the first direction; choosing a plurality of slab thicknesses in the first direction wherein slab thickness varies with each phase encode location and is smaller than the desired FOV and within the optimal imaging volume of the MR scanner; and continuously moving one of the optimal imaging volume and an imaging object in the first direction while repeatedly exciting and encoding spins with readout in the first direction to acquire data that is restricted to a slab thickness for a set of phase encode locations until a set of MR data for the FOV for the first set of phase encode locations is acquired; reversing the direction of motion of one of the optimal imaging volume and the imaging object in the first direction; continuously moving one of the optimal imaging volume and the imaging object in the a reversed direction while repeatedly exciting and encoding spins with readout in the first direction to acquire data that is restricted to the slab thickness for a second set of phase encode locations until a set of MR data for the FOV for the second set of phase encode locations is acquired; and reconstructing at least one image of the FOV from the set of MR data for the first set of phase encode locations and the set of MR data for the second set of phase encode locations.