A method for acquiring magnetic resonance (MR) data for a pulse sequence with periodic signal modulation and a set of views having at least two phase encode directions includes selecting a direction of modulation. Each view in the set of views is assigned a readout number based on a position of each view along the direction of modulation resulting in a plurality of readout number groups, each readout number group having a plurality of views. Each view within each readout number group is assigned a train number based on a position of each view along a second direction in k-space. MR data for the set of views is acquired based on the assigned readout number and train number for each view.