Optical Coherence Tomography

Optical coherence tomography or OCT, is a medical imaging method created by Massachusetts General Hospital researchers in 1990, for deep tissue examination. Using a laser tip that is continually rotating, OCT is able to delve deep into body tissues with focussed light, and image what it finds by measuring the wavelengths returned from organic material. It is somewhat slow, and is best used on non-living material, due to the high noise ratio produced by light waves bouncing off of rapidly moving blood cells in the layer being imaged, and in those above.

OCT works pixel by pixel, and slowly builds up a complete 3D image of each area with micrometer precision. It is slowly being replaced by the faster OFDI.

See also: OFDI

Below, we offer a selection of links from our resource databases which may match this term.

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy ISAM OCT Optical Coherence Tomography

Tomography

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Automated Calibration Method Developed for Optical Microscopes - and HMDs

An automated calibration method, designed for optical microscopes, may find a home in head mounted display units and heads-up augmented reality systems.

Fast Adaptive Optics for 3D Medical Imaging
One of the greatest problems with tomography based medical scanners, is what happens when the patient moves (breathes, or pumps blood). The distortion that occurs in each slice has long been correctable, but takes a long time to correct. With near-instant correction now possible, real-time medical scanning is starting to look like a true possibility.

Optogenetics and Neuroprosthetics Combine
Optogenetics as a field of study, is only a few years old but already a means has been found to make use of it in living brains. Light-detecting proteins combined with gene therapy and an optical neuroprosthetic with a BrainGate style 3D array allow true two-way communication between the brain and a computer system.

Large Image Display: Chrysalis: Optical Door Locks
This still from Chrysalis shows a very different method of locking and unlocking your front door than we are used to. There is no key and no key hole. Instead, what there is is a retinal scanner embedded in the door level with the average head. Peer in and if it recognises you, it unlocks. If not, there is nothing to pick.

Optical Tracking of Zebrafish Neural Impulses
Zebrafish are handy little critters, as far as neuroscience goes. These tiny, mostly transparent little fish have brains that whilst greatly simplified, have a structure remarkably similar in basic form, to our own. Add in that aforementioned near-transparency, and it becomes possible under the correct lighting conditions, to literally see right into their brains, to the point where you can practically watch as a thought takes place.

Resource List: Virtual Sight Devices

Virtual sight devices, sometimes termed virtual light, are a class of display system which is a mix of AR, prosthetics, and VR. They have no actual display units as such, and completely bypass the human eye. Instead, they tap into the optical nerve directly, and deliver processed information to the neurons heading into the brain.

Optical Machine Vision Navigation System Found in Flies
A study conducted to understand how flies and bees can navigate so precisely using just natural sunlight, has interesting implications for machine vision, and adding additional sense-based navigation systems to UAVs and UGVs without adding the weight or cost of any extra hardware.

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