Automatic retinal nerve fiber bundle tracing based on large field of view polarization sensitive OCT data

A technique to accurately estimate trajectories of retinal nerve fiber bundles (RNFB) in a large field of view (FOV) image covering 45 degrees is described. The method utilizes stitched projections of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) data, as well as a mathematical model of average RNFB trajectories as prior. The fully automatic process was applied to data recorded in healthy subjects and glaucoma patients and automatically detected individual RNFB trajectories are compared to manual traces. Published by Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Automated summary

This paper describes a technique to accurately estimate the trajectories of retinal nerve fiber bundles (RNFB) in a large field of view image. The method utilizes stitched projections of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) data and a mathematical model of average RNFB trajectories as prior knowledge. The fully automatic process was applied to data recorded in healthy subjects and glaucoma patients, and compared to manual traces.