1. A method of generating 2D or 3D maps of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T 1 and T 2 relaxation times comprising: providing a MRI machine; causing the MRI machine to acquire a 2D or 3D MRI a steady state free procession-free induction decay (SSFP-FID) sequence of a body part; causing the MRI machine to acquire a dual-echo SSFP sequence of the body part; reconstructing images from the SSFP-FID and dual-echo SSFP sequences; extracting T 1 and T 2 relaxation times for each pixel or voxel of said images; and generating a 2D or 3D map of the T 1 and T 2 relaxation times, wherein T 1 is the longitudinal relaxation time and T 2 is the transverse relaxation time.