Variable density and anisotropic field-of-view for 3D Stack-of-Stars radial imaging.

Objective: To develop a non-iterative method for applying elliptical field-of-view (FOV) to radial imaging and evaluate it for Stack-Of-Stars (SOS) with variable radial density in the $k_z$ direction.

Materials and methods: New analytic expressions were derived to compute the radial profile angles for an elliptical FOV with and without golden angle sampling. With a major-to-minor-axis FOV ratio of 1:0.5, anisotropic FOV and variable density SOS were evaluated, using point spread function analysis, phantom imaging, and in vivo pelvic imaging.

Results: Compared with conventional SOS, elliptical density in $k_z$ reduced scan time by 20%, while maintaining similar levels of radial aliasing artifacts. Anisotropic FOV reduced scan time by 31%, resulting in similar levels of radial aliasing artifacts at low undersampling for objects with matching in-plane anisotropy. Combining both techniques resulted in a 45% scan time reduction. Alternatively, when compared to conventional SOS using identical scan time, variable density and anisotropic FOV both displayed a lower level of radial aliasing artifacts, although for anisotropic FOV this effect was less pronounced at higher undersampling.

Discussion: Variable density and anisotropic FOV can reduce scan time and/or reduce aliasing artifacts for SOS. The new analytical expressions for elliptical FOV will facilitate future studies on anisotropic FOV radial imaging.