Portable retinal imaging for eye disease screening using a consumer-grade digital camera

Simon Barriga; Andrey Larichev; Gilberto Zamora; Peter Soliz

doi:10.1117/12.909318

9 March 2012 Portable retinal imaging for eye disease screening using a consumer-grade digital camera

Simon Barriga, Andrey Larichev, Gilberto Zamora, Peter Soliz

Proceedings Volume 8209, Ophthalmic Technologies XXII; 82091T (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.909318
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2012, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The development of affordable means to image the retina is an important step toward the implementation of eye disease screening programs. In this paper we present the i-RxCam, a low-cost, hand-held, retinal camera for widespread applications such as tele-retinal screening for eye diseases like diabetic retinopathy (DR), glaucoma, and age-related ocular diseases. Existing portable retinal imagers do not meet the requirements of a low-cost camera with sufficient technical capabilities (field of view, image quality, portability, battery power, and ease-of-use) to be distributed widely to low volume clinics, such as the offices of single primary care physicians serving rural communities. The i-RxCam uses a Nikon D3100 digital camera body. The camera has a CMOS sensor with 14.8 million pixels. We use a 50mm focal lens that gives a retinal field of view of 45 degrees. The internal autofocus can compensate for about 2D (diopters) of focusing error. The light source is an LED produced by Philips with a linear emitting area that is transformed using a light pipe to the optimal shape at the eye pupil, an annulus. To eliminate corneal reflex we use a polarization technique in which the light passes through a nano-wire polarizer plate. This is a novel type of polarizer featuring high polarization separation (contrast ratio of more than 1000) and very large acceptance angle (>45 degrees). The i-RxCam approach will yield a significantly more economical retinal imaging device that would allow mass screening of the at-risk population.

Citation Download Citation

Simon Barriga, Andrey Larichev, Gilberto Zamora, and Peter Soliz "Portable retinal imaging for eye disease screening using a consumer-grade digital camera", Proc. SPIE 8209, Ophthalmic Technologies XXII, 82091T (9 March 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.909318

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available