Well I know the basics, that there is a strong magnetic field and atoms line up in there and so on, but then how it will eventually turn out to be a picture, what kind of measurments are done there or what data is registered with what sensors that will then become a picture on the screen?
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[This article](https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/design/technical-documents/tutorials/4/4681.html ) has an excellent discussion of the process. Circuitry generates a specifically shaped magnetic pulse waveform, and listens to the radio energy released when the atoms snap pack in reaction to the pulse. After that, is software that turns it into a picture. The raw data is a series of slices with several different waveforms pulsed through each.
The raw data is radio waves. The MRI magnets make certain atoms in your body emit radio waves in predictable ways. Radio antennas around the scanner pick up those waves and, based on the position and power of the magnets and other antennas at the time, can map the density of certain molecules (usually hydrogen) in 3D space.
A computer takes all those density measurements in 3D and builds the images by “slicing” through the 3D data in different directions.
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