Abstract: A magnetic resonance imaging sequence (FIG. 2 ) is applied with a phase encode gradient (60) between an RF excitation pulse (50) and a refocusing pulse (54) such that out-of-slice artifacts are collapsed into a single line or column (64) in a resultant image display (38). A digital radio frequency transmitter (20) adds an adjustable RF phase component (70) to the excitation pulse and digital radio frequency receiver (26) adds the inverse or negative of the phase component (72) to a received magnetic resonance echo (56). The RF phase increment is adjusted such that the artifact line is displayed at the edge or other selected portion of the resultant image away from a region (74) of primary interest. An operator control (80) enables the field of view to be shifted in the phase encode direction to view different portions of the patient along the phase encode axis.

Abstract: A spin echo (52) and a gradient echo (60) are generated in each magnetic resonance sequence repetition. The spin echo is phase encoded by a phase encode gradient (44) in regular steps spanning about a quarter of k-space. More particularly, steps from -n to G.sub.max /2, where n is a small integer and G.sub.max is the maximum phase encode gradient. An off-set phase encode gradient (58) shifts the phase encoding of the gradient echo by G.sub.max /2 relative to the first phase encoding gradient. Data to fill the empty portions of k-space (142, 167) between -n and -G.sub.max are generated from the complex conjugate (140, 160), of the first echo data (74) and the second echo data (76). The first and second echo data and the complex conjugate data are transformed (122, 132, 146, 166) to generate parted image representations (124, 134, 148, 168).