Portable Android Based Plenoptic Ophthalmic Slit Lamp

Rapid evaluation of ocular injuries in austere environments requires the acquisition and transmission of visual examination data by relatively unqualified individuals due to the lack of qualified ophthalmologists or optometrists in many remote, hostile, or disaster regions. In order to be useful for proper diagnosis by qualified ophthalmologists, the transmitted data must be a relatively high resolution stereo image that provides the tele-operator with the ability to focus on external and anterior gross ocular structures all the way down to internal ocular structures having sub-millimeter scales. In order to obtain appropriate data, a portable field instrument must allow the operator to vary illumination intensity, spectral output, slit width, and other illumination patterns. Preferably the video data should be live or at least capable of being streamed and the data must be transmitted from austere environments. There is a wide range of current devices that perform at least part of these tasks. Digital imaging of slit lamps is accomplished via auxiliary fittings that couple video or still cameras into their optics. Similarly, there are portable slit lamps that are suitable for use in the field but none that have standard imaging capability. There are also smartphone fixtures available in the form of eyepieces that directly mount to slit lamps both portable and desktop. However, none of these systems supply digital stereo images and it is unlikely that slit lamps would be available in remote environments. To address this problem, Nanohmics Inc. proposes to develop an easy to use, handheld Android platform that provides 3-D imaging with integral slit lamp illumination that transmits high resolution images via satellite/cell phone/radio.