Viewing workstation for 4D kinematic MR joint studies

MRI is capable of acquiring time series of 3D images, which gives a 4D examination that can be used for kinematic joint imaging of an unrestricted movement. However, slice-by-slice viewing of the 4D images is cumbersome, and does not allow to appreciate the movement. Simply presenting slice data in a cine loop will be compromised by through-plane displacements of anatomy and “jerks” between frames, both of which hamper visual analysis of the movement. To overcome these limitations, we have implemented a prototype for viewing 4D kinematic MRI data sets. It allows to view in real-time any user defined anatomical structure from any viewing perspective. Smoothly displaying the movement in a cine loop is realized by image post-processing, fixing any user defined anatomical structures after image acquisition.