Objective Research the application value of T1-vibe MRI imaging combined with Argus software in measuring the knee osteoarthritis patella cartilage volume. Methods Choose 88 knee osteoarthritis patients who were admitted in our hospital from June 2013 to June 2014, which were devided into two groups with random number table method, every group had 44 patients. We used T1-vibe MRI imaging combined with Argus software to measure the patella cartilage volume of observation group while the control group use T1-vibe MRI imaging combined with manual measurement. Compare the measurement results of two groups and study its application value. Results The examination time of observation group was obviously less than the control group. There's significant difference in the examination time of two groups（P＜0.05）.The comparison of the repeatability error of measurement in two groups indicated that the observation group had less error than the control group, which had significant difference between them. The error of observation group was 6.2%，1.6%，(0.7-2.0)% and 22% respectively. The patella cartilage volume of two groups indicated that there was no significant difference between them（P＞0.05）. System matching error was -3.8%, the random matching error of two groups was（4.7±2.6）%. Conclusion T1-vibe MRI imaging combined with Argus software is used to measure the knee osteoarthritis of patella cartilage volume, which would reduce the test time greatly, it also has higher repeatability and better security. It is worthy of using in clinical measurement.