Implementation of a heterogeneous image reconstruction system for clinical magnetic resonance

Abstract

This paper describes development of a novel online, heterogeneous image reconstruction system for Magnetic Resonance data. The system integrates an external computer equipped with a Graphic Processing Unit card into the Magnetic Resonance scanner's image reconstruction pipeline. The system promotes fast online reconstruction for computationally intensive algorithms making them feasible in a busy clinical service. Analysis and improvement of execution time of the complex, iterative reconstruction algorithm as well as networking framework are presented. The imaging algorithm was broken down into distinctive steps for execution time profiling. Also, steps to achieve overlapping of execution and transmission are described. The system was successfully used in research and clinical studies requiring high data throughput. © 2014 Springer-Verlag.