FUNDUS OCULI OBSERVING DEVICE

• US 20110051088A1
• Filed: 03/11/2009
• Published: 03/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Topcon
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Topcon
• Inventors: Hayashi, Takefumi, Shimizu, Hitoshi
• Granted Patent: US 8,662,668 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 351/206
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/102 for optical coherence tomography [OCT]
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/4795 spatially resolved investigating of object in scattering medium in vivo A61B

Abstract

A fundus oculi observing device 1 specifies a characteristic site of a fundus oculi Ef depicted in tomographic images of the fundus oculi Ef and, based on the position of the characteristic site within frames FH and FV of the tomographic images, changes a target position of a signal light LS so that the characteristic site is depicted in the center positions within the frames FH and FV and executes a main measurement, thereby forming a tomographic image and/or a three-dimensional image of the fundus oculi Ef.

Claims

1. A fundus oculi observing device, comprising:

an optical system configured to split a low-coherence light into a signal light and a reference light and make the signal light propagated through a fundus oculi of an eye and the reference light propagated through a reference object interfere with each other to generate an interference light;

a detector configured to detect the generated interference light and generate detection signals;

a scanner configured to perform a scan of a target position with the signal light on the fundus oculi;

an image forming part configured to form a tomographic image of the fundus oculi based on the detection signals generated during the scan;

a specifying part configured to specify a characteristic site of the fundus oculi depicted in the formed tomographic image; and

a controller configured to, based on a position of the specified characteristic site within a frame of the tomographic image, control the scanner to change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in a predetermined position within the frame.

2. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in a center position of the frame.

3. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, wherein:

the scanner is configured to replicate the scan of the target position with the signal light along a predetermined scanning trajectory;

the image forming part is configured to, based on the detection signals of the interference light generated from the signal light with which the scan of the target position is replicated, sequentially form the tomographic image of the fundus oculi along the predetermined scanning trajectory;

the specifying part is configured to sequentially specify the characteristic site depicted in the sequentially formed tomographic image; and

the controller is configured to, based on the position within the frame of the sequentially specified characteristic site, sequentially change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position.

4. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 3, wherein:

the characteristic site is a macula center or an optical papilla center of the fundus oculi;

the predetermined scanning trajectory includes a plurality of line trajectories arranged radially;

the image forming part is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, sequentially form the tomographic image along the line trajectory;

the specifying part is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, sequentially specify the characteristic site depicted in the sequentially formed tomographic image along the line trajectory; and

the controller is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, based on the position within the frame of the sequentially specified characteristic site, sequentially change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position.

5. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 3, wherein:

the characteristic site is a fundus oculi center between a macula and an optical papilla of the fundus oculi;

the predetermined scanning trajectory includes a plurality of line trajectories arranged in parallel;

the image forming part is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, sequentially form the tomographic image along the line trajectory;

the specifying part is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, sequentially specify the characteristic site depicted in the sequentially formed tomographic image along the line trajectory; and

the controller is configured to, for each of the line trajectories, based on the position within the frame of the sequentially specified characteristic site, sequentially change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position.

6. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 3, wherein the controller is configured to obtain a displacement of the position of the specified characteristic site from the predetermined position and change the target position of the signal light based on the obtained displacement.

7. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, wherein:

the controller includes a determining part configured to determine whether the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position;

the controller is configured to, when it is determined that the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position, control the optical system and the scanner to scan the target position of the signal light and generate a new interference light, and control the image forming part to form a new tomographic image based on the new interference light; and

the controller is configured to, when it is determined that the characteristic site is not depicted in the predetermined position, control the optical system and the scanner to scan the target position with the signal light again and generate a new interference light, control the image forming part to form a new tomographic image based on the new interference light, control the specifying part to specify the characteristic site depicted in the new tomographic image and, based on a position of the specified characteristic site within a frame of the new tomographic image, change the target position of the signal light so that the characteristic site is depicted in a predetermined position within the frame.

8. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 7, wherein the determining part is configured to obtain a displacement of the position of the characteristic site from the predetermined position, determine that the characteristic site is depicted in the predetermined position when the obtain displacement is less than a predetermined threshold, and determine that the characteristic site is not depicted in the predetermined position when the displacement is equal to or more than the predetermined threshold.

9. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, further comprising a memory configured to store a tomographic image of the fundus oculi of the eye formed in the past, wherein:

the specifying part is configured to specify the characteristic site depicted in the past tomographic image and the characteristic site depicted in the tomographic image of the fundus oculi newly formed by the image forming part, respectively; and

the controller is configured to change the target position of the signal light so that the position of the characteristic site within the frame of the new tomographic image matches the position of the characteristic site within the frame of the past tomographic image.

10. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, further comprising a memory configured to store positional information of the characteristic site within a frame of a tomographic image of the fundus oculi of the eye formed in the past, wherein:

the specifying part is configured to specify the characteristic site depicted in the tomographic image of the fundus oculi newly formed by the image forming part; and

the controller is configured to change the target position of the signal light so that the position of the characteristic site within the frame of the new tomographic image matches the position of the characteristic site represented in the positional information.

11. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 9, wherein the controller is configured to obtain a displacement of the position of the new characteristic site from the position of the past characteristic site and change the target position of the signal light based on the obtained displacement.

12. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 10, wherein the controller is configured to obtain a displacement of the position of the new characteristic site from the position of the past characteristic site and change the target position of the signal light based on the obtained displacement.

13. The fundus oculi observing device according to claim 1, wherein the optical system includes a projector configured to project a fixation target for fixating the eye in a direction corresponding to the characteristic site, to the fundus oculi, and is configured to generate the interference light based on the signal light propagated through the fundus oculi with the fixation target projected.