OCT motion correction

Abstract

From the introduction of time domain OCT [1] up to recent swept source systems, motion continues to be an issue in OCT imaging. In contrast to normal photography, an OCT image does not represent a single point in time. Instead, conventional OCT devices sequentially acquire one–dimensional data over a period of several seconds, capturing one beam of light at a time and recording both the intensity and delay of reflections along its path through an object. In combination with unavoidable object motion which occurs in many imaging contexts, the problem of motion artifacts lies in the very nature of OCT imaging. Motion artifacts degrade image quality and make quantitative measurements less reliable. Therefore, it is desirable to come up with techniques to measure and/or correct object motion during OCT acquisition. In this chapter, we describe the effect of motion on OCT data sets and give an overview on the state of the art in the field of retinal OCT motion correction.