Modeling Videokeratoscopic Height Data with Spherical Harmonics

Purpose. All currently considered parametric models used for decomposing videokeratoscopy height data are viewer-centered and hence describe what the operator sees rather than what the surface is. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the applicability of an object-centered representation to modeling of corneal surfaces. Methods. A three-dimensional surface decomposition into a series of spherical harmonics is considered and compared with the traditional Zernike polynomial expansion for a range of videokeratoscopic height data. Results. Spherical harmonic decomposition led to significantly better fits to corneal surfaces (in terms of the root mean square error values) than the corresponding Zernike polynomial expansions with the same number of coefficients, for all considered corneal surfaces, corneal diameters, and model orders. Conclusions. Spherical harmonic decomposition is a viable alternative to Zernike polynomial decomposition. It achieves better fits to videokeratoscopic height data and has the advantage of an object-centered representation that could be particularly suited to the analysis of multiple corneal measurements. (Optom Vis Sci 2009;86:542-547)