Patent ID: 7692424

Claim:
Software for determining a characteristic of an object from magnetic resonance imaging data obtained via a magnetic resonance imaging scan of the object, the characteristic being dependent on at least one of magnetic moment, volume, and magnetic susceptibility, the software comprising: computer executable instructions configured to obtain real and imaginary values from the magnetic resonance imaging data for each of a plurality of voxels; computer executable instructions configured to calculate a first complex summation of the real and imaginary values of a first set of the plurality of voxels; computer executable instructions configured to calculate a second complex summation of the real and imaginary values of a second set of the plurality of voxels, the second set of the plurality of voxels being a subset of the first set of the plurality of voxels; computer executable instructions configured to estimate the characteristic in a manner such that the characteristic is dependent upon the first complex summation, the second complex summation, and another value quantitatively calculated from the magnetic resonance imaging data.