Recent developments in hardware and software have increased the diagnostic capabilities of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electron beam computed tomography (EBT) to visualise the cardiac anatomy, including the coronary arteries. Visualisation of the heart puts any diagnostic technique to the test, because the continuous cardiac motion distorts the image and high temporal resolution is required to “freeze” the heart to produce a sharp image.

In particular, non-invasive visualisation of the coronary arteries is difficult because of the small size of the coronary arteries (2–5 mm in diameter), the complex, tortuous course making it often impossible to “catch” the coronary artery in one slice (tomogram), and the cardiac and respiratory motion causing loss of sharpness or motion artefacts.

In this article image acquisition and processing techniques of MRI and EBT will be presented. The clinical role of both techniques in cardiac imaging will be discussed, together with a brief introduction of the technical aspects.