Patent ID: 7818046

Claim:
An imaging method for creating an image data record of at least one of a heart and blood vessels of a patient, comprising: deriving, from an ECG signal of a cardiac rhythm of the patient, acquired from an ECG unit a series, tuned to the cardiac rhythm, of recording pulses by which imaging is driven in a pulsed fashion, an initial instant and a final instant of a next recording pulse being determined by taking account of variability parameters characterizing an irregularity of the cardiac rhythm; and creating the image data record based the variability parameters, wherein the variability parameters include, a linear trend line of a cycle duration of the analyzed cardiac cycles, where the linear trend line is determined statistically using a linear regression function that analyzes a prescribed number of preceding cardiac cycles, a standard deviation of the cycle duration based on the linear trend line, a maximum duration based on the standard deviation and a maximum of cycle durations of the prescribed number of preceding cardiac cycles and a first estimated cycle duration determined according to the linear trend line and increased based on a limiting value, and a minimum duration based on the standard deviation and a minimum of the cycle durations of the prescribed number of preceding cardiac cycles and a second estimated cycle duration determined according to the linear trend line and decreased based on the limiting value.