Quantitative Evaluation of Several Partial Fourier

Reconstruction Algorithms Used in MRI

G. McGibney, M. R. Smith, S. T. Nichols, A. Crawley

Partiial Fourier reconstruction algorithms exploit the redun- of the partial Fourier reconstructions with the full Fou-
dancy in magnetic resonance data sets so that half of the data rier images is obtained using both artificial and real clin-
is c,alculated during image reconstruction rather than ac- ical data.
quired. The conjugate synthesis, Margosian, homodyne de-
tection, Cuppen and POCS algorithms are evaluated using
spatial frequency domain analysis to show their characteris-
tics and where limitations may occur. The phase correction THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF EXISTING PARTIAL
used in partial Fourier reconstruction is equivalent to a con- FOURIER ALGORITHMS
volution in the frequency domain and the importance of accu-
rately implementing this convolution is demonstrated. New
Partial Fourier algorithms perform considerable data ma-
reconstruction approaches, based on passing the partial data nipulation in either (or both) the image and spatial fre-
through a phase correcting, finite impulse response (FIR), quency (original data) domains. A number of limitations
digital filter are suggested. These FIR and MoFIR algorithms can be exposed by providing a complete analysis of the
have) a speed near that of the Margosian and homodyne de- algorithms in a single domain. This new information can
tectilon reconstructions, but with a lower error; close to that of be used to suggest new algorithms or at least new direc-
the CuppenlPOCS iterative approaches. Quantitativeanalysis tions to take to overcome deficiencies.
of the partial Fourier algorithms, tested with three phase es- For easy ID and 2D image comparison, all 2D images,
timation techniques, are provided by comparing artificial and p(x, y),will be displayed with the partial data dimension
clinical data reconstructed using full and partial Fourier tech-
placed horizontally. It is therefore convenient to assume
niqules.
that the original data, s(u, v); -N/2 5 v < N/2 is inverse
Key words: partial Fourier; phase correction; FIR filter.
discrete Fourier transformed (DFT) in the v dimension to
give a new data matrix, sy( u ) . Each row of sy(u ) , non-zero
INTRODUCTION for -rn 5 u < Nl2, must be reconstructed to form the
corresponding image row of p(x, y),and can be consid-
Part la1 Fourier reconstruction algorithms exploit the re- ered as an independent data set.
dundancy in the magnetic resonance (MR) data set. Such
algorithms are useful when asymmetric data sets arise in
spin and gradient echo MR imaging. The algorithms dis- Conjugate Synthesis, Margosian, and Homodyne
cussed here are the conjugate synthesis (I),Margosian et Detection Imaging
al. (:?, 3), homodyne detection (4), Cuppen et al. (5) and Conjugate synthesis imaging (1) attempts to reconstruct a
Projection onto Convex Sets (POCS) methods (6, 7). The full data matrix based on the assumption that the final
recent review paper by Liang et al. (8) has provided an image p(x, y) has only real components (i.e., no phase
explanation and qualitative comparison of these algo- terms). The procedure uses the complex conjugate of the
rithms. The alternative spatial frequency domain view- known data [O I u < N/2] to fill in the unknown data. The
point used in this paper indicates both the limitations of image is reconstructed using an inverse DFT on the com-
the existing methods and a faster approach to implement- pleted s y ( u ) data set.
ing POCS. This analysis suggests new reconstruction ap- The Margosian partial Fourier algorithm (2) multiplies
proaches, based on passing the partial data through a the data set, s,(u), by a merging filter, with a frequency
phase correcting, finite impulse response (FIR), digital response H( u ) , to produce a new data set s(,’ u ) with its
filter. All the partial Fourier reconstruction algorithms lower and negative frequencies filtered. This filtering
will be evaluated in conjunction with three phase esti- smooths the transition between calculated and known
mation techniques: Margosian’s low frequency filtered data to reduce Gibbs’ ringing during the DFT operation
estimate (Z), the generalized series (9) and a 2D polyno- which follows. The data are then inverse Fourier trans-
mial model estimate (10, 11).A quantitative comparison formed to the image space and each pixel multiplied by
the phase estimator function, 0,(x) = e-j+y(x), where
$y (x)is the phase estimate. In the frequency domain, this
MRM 3 0 5 1 5 9 (1993)
From the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the is equivalent to convolving the filtered data with the
Department of Radiology (A.C.), University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Fourier transform (FT) a,( u ) of the phase estimate 0,(x)
Canada. giving
Address correspondence to: M. R. Smith, Ph.D., Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, Si(u) = {s,(u)H(u)} 8 Oy(u)where O,(u) = FT(B,(x)).
N.W., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.
Received May 4, 1992; revised October 27, 1992; accepted January 26,
111
1993. The reconstructed image is taken to be the twice the real
0740-3194/93 $3.00
Copyright 0 1993 by Williams & Wilkins part of the image. This is equivalent to adding the fre-
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. quency domain data to the reflected conjugate of itself.
51
52 McGibney et al.

The frequency domain analysis of the Margosian method The frequency domain analysis of this Cuppen imple-
is shown in Fig. 1. mentation is shown in Fig. 2. Conjugating the data in the
'The Margosian image is normally displayed using a image domain is equivalent to conjugating and reflecting
magnitude display. One of the problems with the magni- the spatial frequency domain data around the zero fre-
tude display of images is the noise bias which leads to a quency point. This also reverses the sign of the phase
decreased detectability for low intensity objects. This can error in the image domain, which must be corrected by
be avoided by displaying a phase corrected real image multiplying with the function O;(x) = e'2'r(x). The image
(12-14) provided that the phase estimator is not corre- phase correction operation corresponds to a convolution
lated to the noise (10).Since the images obtained from a in the frequency domain with the Fourier transform
partial Fourier reconstruction are commonly displayed of O'Jx). Finally the new data set is placed in the original
using a magnitude display, it is not often realized that data set locations where no data had been collected, and
these images are phase corrected if properly recon- the process iterated.
structed. If these images were displayed as a real data set, POCS (6, 7) is based on the principle that the correct
then the improved low intensity detectability suggested image is the intersection of all images whose Fourier
by Berstein et al. (13) would become available. This is the transform agrees with the measured partial data and all
essence of the homodyne detection approach (4) which is images whose phase is the same as the phase estimate. To
equivalent to a Margosian reconstruction with a real find the intersection of these two images sets, the data set
rather than a magnitude display of the reconstructed is first inverse Fourier transformed into the image do-
image. main, where the complex values of the image are pro-
jected onto a line that is at an angle equal to the phase
Cuppen and POCS Methods estimate,

-
These iterative approaches attempt to overcome the
shortcomings of the Margosian method. The Lindskog The new image is then Fourier transformed back to the
Cuppen implementation (15) inverse Fourier transforms spatial frequency domain where it is used to replace the
the original data to the image domain where it is conju- unknown data. The process is repeated and on the last
gated and multiplied by eJZm'(x).This new image is then iteration, instead of substituting the new data into the
Fourier transformed back into the spatial frequency do- data set from the previous iteration, a merging filter is
main to be used to fill in the missing data points. The used.
process is then iterated until a suitable convergence is The relationship between the POCS and Cuppen's al-
found. gorithms is more obvious if the projection operation is

ORIGINAL
DATA SET

MULTIPLY

PHASECORRECI'ION
(FOOURIUI'IRANFOFMED)
11 DATA SET
"("'REFLECTED

CONVOLVE

O W
DATA SET
DATA SET

FIG. 1. Frequency domain analysis of the Margosian/homodyne FIG. 2. Frequency domain analysis of the Cuppen's partial Fou-
detection partial Fourier reconstruction method. Removal of the rier reconstruction algorithm. The POCS algorithm is equivalent to
phase correction stage provides the analysis for the conjugate averaging the Cuppen's corrected data with the original data until
synthesis approach. the final iteration, when a merging filter is applied.
Parti8dFourier Reconstruction Algorithms 53

reworked (10) three or four iterations are sufficient to reconstruct the

image (5). A further complication occurs after the first
iteration with the Cuppens and POCS algorithms as the
circular convolution mixes (distorts)the high (valid) pos-
This simpler form contains constant trigonometric terms
itive and negative frequency components responsible for
that need only be calculated on the first iteration, and no
magnitude operations, so that it executes twice as fast as high resolution image characteristics. The importance of
the original POCS algorithm. The first term of the re- this effect (not shown in Fig. 2) depends on the ampli-
worked equation is equivalent to Cuppen’s algorithm. tude of the high frequency components.
The POCS projection operation then averages this “Cup- The degree of distortion introduced by the phase cor-
pen” output with the original data, limiting the change in rection is directly related to how (and when) the merging
the new estimate and the convergence, but improving the filter is applied, the bandwidth of the phase correction
ovendl stability. The merging operation between the orig- operation, eJu),and whether the phase correction is
inal and derived data that occurs on the last step reduces applied by multiplication in the spatial domain (circular
the Gibbs’ ringing in the image associated with the dis- convolution) or by direct convolution in the frequency
continuity in the frequency domain. domain where the edge effects of the convolution can
possibly be more easily controlled. This direct convolu-
tion is equivalent to passing the partial data through a
FIR AND MOFlR RECONSTRUCTIONS finite impulse response filter (FIR) digital filter.
One reason that partial Fourier reconstruction algorithms Preliminary work by McGibney ef al. (10) has shown
are not as successful in practice as in theory is associated that it is possible to directly obtain a narrow bandwidth
with distortions introduced during the phase correction. 2D polynomial phase estimate (11)for spin-echo images.
Multiplying an image with a phase correction Oy(x)in the For gradient-echo images, a narrow bandwidth phase es-
spatial domain is equivalent to circularly convolving the timator could be obtained using a windowed version of
spatial frequency domain sy( u ) with @(u)= FT[B,(x)l. the phase estimator,
Figure 3 schematically illustrates this operation. Many of
the points in s y ( u ) are invalid since they were not col- @wjndowe,Ju) = @ ( ~ ) w (w
~ l(; ~ =) 1; 1~11 5 p 141
lected. The phase correcting convolution smears these = 0;lul > p
invalid points into the legitimate data, decreasing the

asymmetries since the data, sYoctual( u);u -

size of the valid data. The problem is greater for large data
-m,will then
have a large amplitude. The application of the merging
where 2p + 1 is the window length (bandwidth) of the
phase estimator. The data set is then passed through (con-
volved with) this FIR filter to phase correct the positive
filter, typically a shifted Hanning filter, in the Margosian data frequencies. The short filter length implies that di-
partial Fourier method would further decrease the size of rect convolution would be computationally efficient
the valid data. In addition, the phase correction operation (Order(2pN)complex operations). The negative frequen-
distorts the characteristics of the filter so that its merging cies can be determined simply by applying conjugate
action is less than ideal. symmetry to the phase corrected data.
The first pass through the Cuppen algorithm has the However, this simplistic approach would lead to prob-
same distortion problems with the convolution operator lems if the phase was not completely corrected as the
as does the Margosian incomplete data set with its zeros associated discontinuity would create low frequency
in the range u < -m.Each successive iteration however ringing in the image as with the other algorithms. Instead
produces a better estimate of these values and typically a merging filter (e.g., a shifted Hanning filter) is applied
to the phase corrected data before it is reflected and
added to itself. The merging filter’s transition should be
kept narrow enough to ensure that little of the distorted
edges of the phase corrected data is introduced into the
image. (There is a trade off between the need to ensure
smooth data merging and the requirement to reject data
distorted during the phase correction. It may be possible
for the merging filter to have a narrower transition that
U
used in the Margosian filtering since the phase correction
-NR -m 0 NR-1 has already occurred.) The data is then added to the time
reversed conjugate of itself to produce a full Fourier data
set which can be transformed to produce an image. The
frequency domain analysis of the FIR partial Fourier al-
U
gorithm is shown schematically in Fig. 4.
-NR -m+p NR-I-p
A closer look at the spatial frequency domain expres-
FIG. :3. Phase correction in the image domain corresponds to a sion of the Margosian (Fig. 1)and FIR approaches (Fig. 4)
circular convolution operation in the frequency domain. Edge effect shows that the only difference in the algorithms is the
data distortions will occur because of the incompletedata set. The order of phase correction and filtering. This difference is
distortions are reducedby having a low bandwidth phase estimator. significant since these operators do not commute, despite
54 McGibney et al.

statements to the contrary by Nolls et al. (4). The differ- in Fig. 5 which represents some simplistic data that is
ence between the two methods becomes greater as the shifted in the frequency domain by the effect of a simple
phase shifts become larger. linear phase term. The phase correction operation is rep-
The merging filter using in the Margosian and homo- resented by O ( u ) = 6 ( u - n). The merging filter is illus-
dyne techniques was designed to smooth the transition trated using a ramp filter although a shifted Hanning
between known and zero values to avoid Gibbs' ringing filter would actually be used. The shaded areas in Fig. 5
during reconstruction. The merging filter in the FIR al- schematically show the edge distortions that would be
gorithm also smooths the transition, but is designed more present if the phase correction operator had a bandwidth
to remove the data distorted by the phase correction edge of 2 p + 1. It can clearly be seen that the amount of data
effects. The differences are schematically demonstrated affected by the convolution edge effects is considerably
lower in the FIR approach. The Cuppen/POCS algorithms
achieve a similar reduction in edge effects by virtue of
their iteration. The reason that the homodyne detection
and Margosian reconstructions are limited to images
with slowly varying phase (small p ) can be seen by the

+ CONVOLVE

PHASE CORRECTED
DATA SET
large shaded area for these algorithms. The use of a merg-
ing filter prior to the phase correction means that the
errors are introduced directly into the large amplitude
terms around 1u1 = 0 , maximizing the distortion.
As will be seen in the reconstructed images, the sim-
plistic approach of the FIR reconstruction is degraded by
rmm I uL
the windowing operation on the phase estimates which
introduces truncation artifacts if the true bandwidth is

LT--l
MULTIPLY high. This is a problem for gradient echo images where a
really narrow bandwidth phase estimator has not yet
been found (10).These artifacts are reduced in the mod-
PHASE CORRECIED

DATA SET
ified FIR (MoFIR) approach which uses all the phase
correction function, e(u ) , without truncating it. This
however reintroduces some of the convolution edge ef-
fects discussed earlier. However if the phase estimator is
properly chosen, its values outside the range +- p are still
small so that the smearing of the noncollected data will
not extend too far into the valid data and will be effec-
tively removed by the use of the narrow transition merg-
ing filter. When successful at reconstruction, this algo-
rithm phase corrects the data so that the image can be
FIG. 4. Frequency domain analysis of the N R and MoNR partial
displayed with a real display to obtain increased low
Fourier reconstruction algorithms.

ORIGINAL DATA MERGING FILTER

k 1x_
FIG. 5. Schematic diagram showing
the distortions introduced into the
Margosian/homodyne partial Fourier MARGOSIAN RECONSTRUCTION
MERGING FXTER PHASE CORRECTION R E N C l l O N & ADDITION
reconstructed data set as the merging 4
filter is applied prior to the phase cor-
rection. The FIRalgorithm removes this
distortion and accounts more accu-
t sfuJHfu) /sfuJHfuJJ'o(uJ

rately for the edge effects (shaded ar-

eas) associated with the phase correc-
tion operator's bandwidth.
MoFIR RECONSTRUCTION
PHASE CORRECIION MERGWG FILTER REFLECnON & ADDITION

d u ) W/uJ fsfuJ .Ofu)JHfuJ

I
Partial Fourier Reconstruction Algorithms 55

intensity detectability mentioned for the homodyne Analysis on artificially generated data can be rightly
technique. criticized as being unrealistic and not representing the
The MoFIR phase correction convolution can be imple- true clinical picture. However, when artificially gener-
men ted directly in the frequency domain. However, the ated data is used in conjunction with clinical data, it can
long length of the phase estimator means that it is more give an insight on the reasons why certain distortions
computationally efficient (Order(Nlog,N) compared to appear on the clinical data. The final test was on a high
Order(2pN) complex operations) to inverse Fourier signal-to-noise clinical image: an axial view of the head
transform the partial data into the image domain, multi- acquired with a spin echo series and a data set size of 256
ply by the phase correction, Fourier transform back to the X 256 (Fig. 6B). The phase of the image was slowly vary-
frequency domain to apply the merging filter before re- ing with sharp local phase changes associated with blood
flecting the data and reconstructing. Thus the MoFIR re- flow near the bottom of the image and in several locations
construction is “2 FFTs” slower than the Margosian ap- around the circumference of the brain.
proach, but computationally more efficient than the Partial data sets were generated by setting the values
Cuppens and POCS approaches which are more than “21 for u < -m equal to 0 in the full data sets. Each partial
FFTj” slower, where I is the number of iterations. Fourier algorithm was tested on the clinical images with
the filtered (low frequency), the generalized series (GS)
and the 2D polynomial estimate. The low frequency
TEST METHODS AND RESULTS phase estimate ( 2 ) uses as a phase estimate the image
Two test images were evaluated. The first was an artificial generated by zero padding the center portion of the data
image, a simple box shape (see Fig. 6A) generated in the -m 2 u < m to -Nl2 2 u < Nl2 and reconstructing using
spatial frequency domain from a truncated sinc function. the standard Fourier technique. By contrast, the general-
This, artificial image was modified with a quadratic glo- ized series (9) attempts to model all the known frequency
bal phase error and two rapid localized phase changes information using a separable function where one com-
( 0 . 1 and
~ 0 . 5 high,
~ 5 pixels wide, respectively). These ponent contains only image amplitude terms (based on
phase errors represent static field and instrumentation an edge enhanced magnitude image) and the other only
effects and a small and large flow induced phase changes. phase information. Further details may be found in the
Both exact and inaccurate (quadratic only) phase esti- review by Liang et al. (8).
mates were supplied to the partial Fourier algorithms. MacFall et al. (16) have attempted to generate a phase
This was intended to correspond to practical situations estimate using a 1D polynomial. This work was extended
where the exact phase is not determined because of the first by Berstein and Perman (12) to low order polynomi-
effect of image noise or the nature of the phase estimation als in both data directions and then by McGibney et al.
algorithm. (10, 11) to a true 2D polynomial fit. A major advantage of

FIG. 6. (A) Artificial box data with a

several discontinuities superirn-
posed on a general quadratic phase
shift. The heavy line indicates the
area used for local error deterrnina-
tion. (B) Full clinical image with sev-
eral location of large (rapid) phase
changes. The box indicates the
area used for local error deterrnina-
tion.
56 McGibney et al.

the polynomial estimators is that they give “smooth”

phase estimates. This generates a narrow band-width
phase estimator, which should reduce the edge effects
associated with the phase correction operator. For the
images used in this analysis the full width at tenth max-
imum of the phase estimators for the 2D polynomial,
filtered and GS algorithms was 5, 17, and 217 pixels,
respectively. For a gradient echo image, the Margosian
phase estimate would have the lowest bandwidth as
there currently is not a suitable smooth phase estimator
for this class of image (10). A quantitative comparison of
the phase estimators used with both spin and gradient
echo images is to be the subject of a future paper.
A quantitative analysis was made to evaluate the effec-
tiveness of the partial Fourier algorithms. Difference im-
ages, determined by subtracting the magnitude of the
partial Fourier image, ppartlol(x, y), from the magnitude of
the full Fourier reconstruction, pfull(x,y ) ,were evaluated.
All tests were done using partial Fourier data sets with m
= 16. The short length of the symmetrically sampled data
will tend to emphasize any reconstruction problems. To
further emphasize the phase effects, both data sets were
deliberately offset by 2 pixels to ensure that the data was
asymmetrically positioned relative to the expected “cen-
ter.” The power error measure,

indicates the relative size of the difference image to the

full Fourier image. It was applied over regions, R, that
covered the full image and a small region. The full image
measure is a global estimate of the overall quality of the
phas’e fit, including regions of rapid phase change where
phase estimation can be difficult. The second small re-
gion evaluation measures the quality of the reconstruc-
tion away from these difficult regions. Any increased
error in the local error measure indicates that image dis-
tortion has been introduced by the poor reconstruction of
ot:her areas.
Figure 7 provides a comparison of the partial Fourier
reconstruction of the artificial box image when used with
the various phase estimation algorithms. The corre-
sponding quantitative error measures are given below the
figures. The degree to which inaccuracies in one image
portion affect other image areas should be examined. The
local error area is indicated by the thick line in the fig-
ures. Figure 8 show the difference images together with
the quantitative measures for the full image data. The
local area chosen for quantitative evaluation is indicated
by a small box in the full image (Fig. 6B).
The conjugate synthesis results are included for com-
pleteness. All test images indicated that when any phase
terms are present, the basic assumption of this method is FIG. 7. Artificial box data reconstructed using the different partial
invalid and unacceptable reconstruction occurs. Fourier reconstructionalgorithms in conjunctionwith various phase
‘The Margosian and homodyne detection reconstruc- estimation algorithms. The global and local error values are indi-
ticins are equivalent except that they display a magnitude cated.
and a real component image respectively, which should
have no effect on the measures for the high SNR images cussed earlier can be seen in all test images as errors in
analyzed. When any phase term is present, the systematic the DC and very low frequency image components. How-
errors caused by the phase convolution distortions dis- ever, these errors are greatly reduced from the complex
Partial Fourier Reconstruction Algorithms 57

FIG. 8. Difference images for the

clinical data reconstructed using
partial Fourier reconstruction meth-
ods in conjunction with various
phase estimation techniques. Glo-
bal and local error values are indi-
cated.

synthesis approach for only a small increase in compu- higher bandwidth filtered and generalized series phase
tation time. estimates. This allows its use with both spin and gradient
Given the exact phase terms, both the Cuppens and echo images, unlike the direct FIR approach. Errors from
POCS iterative approaches quickly move to a line image an inaccurate phase estimate are again localized, avoid-
that is equivalent to that of the full Fourier reconstruc- ing the systematic distortions found in the Margosianl
tion. In practice, the phase estimate will not be exact and homodyne detection reconstructions.
the procedures have a tendency to become unstable in An estimate of the calculation time required for the
this situation if iterated too often. Given an inaccurate algorithms was obtained by implementing the algorithm
phase estimate (quadratic terms only), the Cuppen algo- on a TAAC application's accelerator connected to a SUN
rithm had large amplitude distortions in the regions of 31160 workstation and does not include system overhead
local rapid phase change which spread as low frequency such as image movement. The results are given in Table
oscillations into areas where the phase estimate had been 1. The times for phase estimation plus partial Fourier
corrwt. The rippling occurs because of the mismatch of reconstruction range over several orders of magnitude.
the positive and negative data sets where they meet in the The times for POCS reconstruction is for the faster algo-
frequency domain; producing Gibbs' ringing artifacts in rithm suggested by McGibney (10). The actual times for
the image domain. This ringing is particularly evident in the Cuppen and POCS algorithms depends on the num-
the full image when the phase estimate is generated from ber of iterations required, which is image-dependent.
the generalized series algorithm as this approach is itself Despite the fact that the FIR reconstruction used a
susceptible to ringing artifacts (10).The POCS conver- small bandwidth filter during the direct convolution, it
gence is slower than for the Cuppen's algorithm because
of the averaging action. However, the local phase error
effects do not spread as far through the image because of Table 1
the s,moothing action of the averaging and the use of a Comparison of the Times of the Partial Fourier Reconstruction
merging filter. Algorithms Both Individually and in Conjunction with the Phase
Because the high frequency bandwidth of the exact Estimation Algorithms
phase estimate invalidates its basic assumptions, the FIR
Partial Partial
method performs poorly on the artificial box data. With Partial Fourier
the lower bandwidth of the smoothed phase estimate, it Partial Fourier Fourier
provides a reconstruction on both the line and clinical Fourier PIUS genera,ized plus
data similar to the Cuppen or POCS algorithms, with only filtered polynomial
(s) estimate estimate
artifacts near the rapid phase changes. Unlike Cuppen
,and IPOCS reconstructions, these distortions are strictly (s) (S)
(S)
localized to the area where the phase has been incorrectly Conjugate-symmetry 2.4 7.1 464 7.1
determined (sharp changes). This localizing effect is also Margosian-hornodyne 2.9 7.6 464 7.6
seen when the FIR is used on the clinical image with Cuppen (4 iterations) 12.5 17.2 474 17.2
filterled and generalized series phase estimates, despite POCS (4 iterations) 14.6 19.3 476 19.3
their larger bandwidth. FIR (direct) 9.6 14.3 471 14.3
FIR (circular) 5.3 10.0 467 10.0
The MoFIR reconstruction approach was designed to MoFIR (circular) 5.3 10.0 467 10.0
work with both the low bandwidth 2D polynomial and
58 McGibney et al.

was still considerably slower than the MoFIR reconstruc- values of the partial data width m are available by using
tion which required a number of additional transforms a low bandwidth phase estimator and a narrow merging
between the frequency and time domains. This is a con- filter. In particular, the merging filter must be applied
sequence of the 2pN and Nlog,N time relationship be- after the phase correction so that the merging filter char-
tween the direct and circular convolution methods. In acteristics are not distorted, and to ensure that the phase
retrospect, the FIR reconstruction, despite its shorter fil- correction edge effects are removed. When only high
ter length, could also have been determined this way. The bandwidth phase estimators are available, as in a gradi-
current implementation of the Cuppen and POCS algo- ent echo image, a larger value of m is required for optimal
rithms via the computationally efficient circular convo- reconstruction. After phase correction, a sharp transition
lution must be balanced against the fact that the circular merging filter is used in the MoFIR algorithm to remove
convolution mixes the high positive and negative data (reduce) the data made invalid by the phase correction
frequencies. Direct convolution can allow better control convolution operation, and then the data is reflected and
of the edge effects. By contrast, there is no difference in reconstructed.
the FIR and MoFIR algorithms implemented by either However full removal of the edge effects can only be
approach. This is because there are not yet any negative achieved by reconstructing using the undistorted data
frequency data components when the phase correction between [-m + p I u < Nl2 - 1 - Zp]. This implies some
convolution is applied. technique, such as modeling (8, 17), to implicitly or ex-
plicitly extrapolate the data beyond u = N12 - 1 - 2p to
avoid the convolution distortion associated with smear-
CONCLUSIONS ing the high positive and negative frequencies of the par-
tial data set. In addition, since the phase estimator band-
Five existing methods of partial Fourier imaging (conju-
width may be greater than the partial data width, it will
gate symmetry, Margosian, homodyne detection, Cup-
also be necessary to generate the data for u 5 -m + 2p.
pen, and POCS) were analyzed using equivalent fre-
After these extrapolations, the partial Fourier reconstruc-
quency domain operations to determine how they
tion can be completed. A number of papers (10, 18, 19)
introduced the missing data and what their weaknesses
have reported early results from the combination of mod-
were. The analysis was used to suggest two new partial
eling and partial Fourier reconstruction, although those
reconstruction techniques (FIR and MoFIR) in an attempt
algorithms were not implemented with the intention of
to obtain the best features of the other algorithms but in
removing the phase correction distortions. The quantita-
a faster implementation.
tive evaluation of the joint technique is to be the subject
Global and local quantitative measures of the algo-
of a future paper. The evaluation is difficult as it is nec-
rithms was made using an artificial I D image and a 2D
essary to distinguish between the effects of modeling on
clinical images. Similar distortion effects and systematic
both the full Fourier and partial Fourier reconstructions
errors were seen for the algorithms whether reconstruct-
and the correction of the phase estimation edge effects.
ing artificial or clinical data with the conjugate symme-
tr,y, Margosian and homodyne approaches giving the
worst results. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Cuppen and POCS algorithms converged to the
exact image (given enough iterations) if a true phase es- The authors wish to thank the University of Calgary and
timate was provided. However, if the phase estimate was the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
not exact, both algorithms produced major non-localized (NSERC) of Canada for scholarship and operating funds.
artifacts. However, their global performance was better The clinical image was provided by Dr. Fernando Boada
than the other algorithms. (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio).
The FIR and MoFIR methods are fast non-iterative al-
gorithms implemented using an approach that allowed REFERENCES
for the correction of edge effects associated with the
1. D. A. Feinberg, J. D. Hale, J. C. Watts, L. Kaufman, A. Mark,
phase correction operation. When the phase estimate was
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