Magnetic Resonance Data (MRD) Format

The Magnetic Resonance Data (MRD) format is a vendor neutral standard for describing data from MR acquisitions and reconstructions. It consists of 4 major components:

  1. An MRD header containing general metadata describing the acquisition, including MR system details and k-space sampling. The header contains a small set of mandatory parameters common to all MR acquisitions, but is extensible to parameters for specialized acquisitions such as b-values, venc, magnetization preparation durations, etc. The MRD header is in XML format and described by an XML schema file.

  2. Raw k-space data is stored as individual readout acquisitions. Each readout contains the complex raw data for all channels, a fixed AcquisitionHeader for metadata including encoding loop counters, and optionally corresponding k-space trajectory information. Most datasets will be comprised of many acquisitions, each stored individually with its own AcquisitionHeader, optional trajectory, and raw data.

  3. Image data is stored as either sets of 2D or 3D arrays with a fixed ImageHeader of common properties and an extensible set of image MetaAttributes. Images can be organized into series of common types and multi-channel data is supported for non-coil-combined images.

  4. Physiological data such as electrocardiograms, pulse oximetry, or external triggering sources are stored as individual waveforms along with a fixed WaveformHeader for metadata.