Sculpting 3D spatial selectivity with pairs of 2D pulses: A comparison of methods.

•Methods to excite 3D spatial shapes using pairs of 2D RF pulses were compared.•A method relying on a pair of SPEN-based 2D pulses provided the best results in phantoms.•This method was the only one to achieve robust ex- and in-vivo 3D selectivity.•Unfolding techniques were developed to disentangle center- and side-band contributions.•These techniques enabled a significant gradient increase that was used in the SPEN-based 2D pulses.