The embodiments relate to generating a 2D projection image of a vascular system of a body region of interest, including: (1) acquiring a 3D dataset of the body region of interest, (2) acquiring at least one 2D projection image of the body region of interest (S3), (3) generating a modified 3D dataset by eliminating vessels whose size exceeds a predetermined limit value, (4) normalizing the 2D projection image using projection data of the modified 3D dataset, (5) eliminating vessel projections in the normalized 2D projection image whose size exceeds a predetermined limit value, (6) interpolating the areas of the 2D projection image in which the vessel projections have been eliminated, and (7) denormalizing the normalized and interpolated 2D projection image using projection data of the modified 3D dataset.