1. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system comprising: a magnet system configured to generate a polarizing magnetic field about at least a portion of a phantom arranged in the MRI system, the phantom including a known structure and a slice of the known structure including a plurality of geometric shapes arranged in a predefined pattern; a plurality of gradient coils configured to apply a gradient field to the polarizing magnetic field; a radio frequency (RF) system configured to apply an excitation field to the phantom and acquire MR image data therefrom; and a computer programmed to: reconstruct an image of the phantom from the MR image data, the image being a two-dimensional representation of the slice of the phantom; conduct a first image analysis process of the image to identify a plurality of seed pixels in the image of the phantom using a fuzzy two-dimensional shape recognition algorithm; conduct a second image analysis process of the image to rank combinations of the seed pixels using a fuzzy two-dimensional pattern recognition algorithm using a priori information about the predefined pattern and the plurality of seed pixels; and rank the combinations of the seed pixels to generate an indication of an imaging quality characteristic of the MRI system.