Iris-based cyclotorsional image alignment method for wavefront registration

In refractive surgery, especially wavefront-guided refractive surgery, correct registration of the treatment to the cornea is of paramount importance. The specificity of the custom ablation formula requires that the ablation be applied to the cornea only when it has been precisely aligned with the mapped area. If, however, the eye has rotated between measurement and ablation, and this cyclotorsion is not compensated for, the rotational misalignment could impair the effectiveness of the refractive surgery. To achieve precise registration, a noninvasive method for torsional rotational alignment of the captured wavefront image to the patient's eyes at surgery has been developed. This method applies a common coordinate system to the wavefront and the eye. Video cameras on the laser and wavefront devices precisely establish the spatial relationship between the optics of the eye and the natural features of the iris, enabling the surgeon to identify and compensate for cyclotorsional eye motion, whatever its cause. Index Terms--Biomedical image processing, image orientation analysis, image registration, motion compensation.