A method and apparatus are disclosed for determining, with particular simplicity, an acquisition parameter for a medical tomography device. It is provided here to make an original image available for a selection, selection of the original image being used to select an original parameter set assigned thereto as acquisition parameter set. In order to compile the original image, it is provided here to modify a basic tomographic raw data record before carrying out a 3D reconstruction by means of a noise algorithm for simulating a virtual image quality measure.