Temporal Unwrapping of Highly Wrapped Multi-Echo Phase Images at Ultra-High Field: UMPIRE

Simon P. Robinson¹, Horst Schdl¹, Siegfried Trattnig¹

We describe a temporal phase unwrapping method applicable to multi-echo data called UMPIRE. This uses unequal spacings between echoes and an assessment of phase evolution in the time difference between the echo spacings to allow - uniquely amongst temporal unwrapping approaches - a number of wraps between echoes to be resolved. UMPIRE successfully resolved wraps in complicated simulated shapes which could not be unwrapped with prior temporal methods or the spatial methods PRELUDE and PHUN. UMPIRE also outperformed spatial methods in unwrapping in-vivo data and was faster than spatial methods.