A method of magnetic resonance imaging includes exciting magnetic resonant
active nuclei in a region of interest; creating magnetic field gradients;
receiving radio frequency data from the region of interest; and producing
an image by combining images obtained from radio frequency signals of
single coils of the array and weighting the images of each coil with a
sensitivity of the corresponding coil, wherein an estimated sensitivity
of each coil of the array being used is determined by applying a
smoothing filter to a k-space data set received from each coil; and
wherein for a one-dimensional sensitivity profile the filter is
configured with a triangular shape and for a two-dimensional sensitivity
profile the filter is configured with a pyramidal shape, the triangular
filter having a width and the pyramidal filter having a base double a
maximum spatial frequency of the corresponding coil field.