Comparison of mtrk, Pulseq, and vendor sequences using simulated, phantom, and in-vivo acquisitions

Motivation: Pulse-sequence development traditionally relies on proprietary and access-restricted vendor SDKs. Open-source frameworks can make pulse-sequence programming more intuitive and accessible. Goal(s): Establish mtrk as an open-source web-based tool for developing or converting custom MRI pulse sequences into a standardized format. Approach: mtrk was used to design a spin-echo sequence, which was then converted into Pulseq format. Both versions were evaluated in phantom and in vivo scans. The results were compared to images from a vendor sequence. Results: Images from the mtrk, Pulseq, and vendor sequences showed high similarity. Phantom results matched synthetic images simulated for the same sequence using KomaMRI. Impact: mtrk can improve the reproducibility, accessibility, and dissemination of pulse sequences through an intuitive development environment. Its human-readable descriptive language, its compatibility with Pulseq, and its agreement with vendor sequences make mtrk a powerful open-source tool for MRI pulse-sequence development.