Hyperspectral imaging in ophthalmology

In eye care, the importance of detailed and accurate imaging has never been more apparent. Current techniques based around the trichromatic representation of images (red, green and blue) usually lose a good degree of information before the final processed image is shown. A technique already in use in many other disciplines, that to a large extent avoids this, is now attracting a good deal of interest in eye care.

Hyperspectral imaging

In conventional digital colour photographic techniques, each pixel is typically derived from the sum of three separate detector elements – blue, green and red. However, a significant amount of information is lost in this image capture process. A more complete set of information would be available as detailed spectral information at each pixel location in the image plane. Normal colour vision is not able to identify spectral signatures of elements within an image because elements of a specific spectral signature will typically have contributions from red, green and blue photoreceptors.