Patent ID: 8761464

Claim:
A method comprising: acquiring a plurality of magnetic resonance image (“MRI”) data signals utilizing a single echo data acquisition, wherein the echo time can be flexible; forming a complex image corresponding to the single echo acquisition said image comprising a plurality of pixels, wherein a pixel value comprises amplitude and phase information; forming two complex images DX mn and DY mn using the complex image, wherein each of the pixels in DX mn and DY mn is given by the phase difference between two neighboring pixels along the x- and y-directions, respectively; selecting an initial seed pixel from the plurality of pixels and placing the initial seed pixel onto one of a plurality of pixel stacks wherein the initial seed pixel may have the smallest DX mn and DY mn value of any of the neighbor pixels and is adjacent to at least four neighbor pixels; performing a region-growing algorithm for phase correction in the complex image, wherein the region-growing algorithm places each neighbor pixel onto a pixel stack as determined by DX mn and DY mn value of the pixel; determining the phase-corrected value of a pixel during the region growing by using a reference based on both the amplitude and the phase information of pixels that have been phase-corrected and that lie within the neighborhood of the pixel under consideration; separating chemical species within the image; and obtaining one or more images containing one or more of the separated chemical species.