3D IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION METHOD FOR PLACING 3D STRUCTURE WITHIN COMMON OBLIQUE OR CONTOURED SLICE-VOLUME WITHOUT LOSS OF VOLUME RESOLUTION

Variable voxel shifts required for shifting a 3D structure into a common oblique or contoured slice volume based on an existing 3D image are achieved by effecting variable f(x,y) phase shifts in corresponding frequency domain data parallel to a selected axis dimension and then reconstructing a new three-dimensional image having the 3D structure all located within a common oblique or otherwise contoured slice volume such that it may viewed in a single planar image display without loss of volume resolution. Equivalent convolution processes withing the spatial domain may also be empolyed. Oblique or curved reconstructions can thus be made using either originally acquired frequency domain data (used to construct the original image) or frequency domain data obtained by inverse Fourier transforming the available spatial domain data of the images themselves.