Patent ID: 7005854

Claim:
A method for enhancing resolution of a magnetic resonance image of an object comprising: receiving a first analog Fourier domain signal indicative of a first magnetic resonance image of an area of the object; receiving a second analog Fourier domain signal indicative of a second magnetic resonance image of the area of the object; superposing a phase ramp on the first analog Fourier domain signal in frequency encode direction, the phase ramp corresponding to a shift of a field of view of the first image with respect to the field of view of the second image of less than a pixel width; discretizing the first and the second analog Fourier domain signal producing a first and a second digital Fourier domain signal; merging in Fourier domain the first and the second digital Fourier domain signal producing a merged digital Fourier domain signal; deconvoluting the merged digital Fourier domain signal using an aperture function; and, determining image data indicative of a synthesized magnetic resonance image of the area of the object by inverse Fourier transforming the merged digital Fourier domain signal, the synthesized magnetic resonance image having substantially higher resolution than the first and the second magnetic resonance image.