a method for acquiring an nmr spectroscopy response signal from a portion of a sample located in a voxel at the junction of three planar surfaces , each in a plane at an angle to the planes of the other two surfaces , first excites the sample with a localization subsequence which selects values for the surfaces in only two of the three dimensions , to evoke a chemical - shift spectrum from voxels substantially along a line at the junction of the two selected planes ; and then provides a readout subsequence including a nmr signal portion spatially - selective in the third dimension and selected to limit the received spectroscopy response signal substantially to the voxel of interest . any necessary cycling of sequences to improve spatial localization is provided in the two dimensions of the preliminary localization subsequence ; phase cycling or alternation is not used in the selective rf pulse of the data acquisition subsequence . the methods provide improvements in immunity to localization artifacts , as may be produced physiological motion , or by nmr relaxation between the localization and read - out subsequences .