What algorithm do OCT machines use to generate automatic measurements of thicknesses and volumes?
Dear Safal,
Many OCT machines come with a built-in measurement algorithm that can automate thickness and volume measurements. Automated layer detection is quite complex mathematically and it appears most OCTs use proprietary software for this purpose that varies greatly in terms of function and ongoing support. I could not find any freely available source or script for automated OCT measurement during my studies.
The best place to start is to find out the system name of the OCT you are working with and check to see whether the bundled software is sufficient for your needs. For my research, the software on the machine we used (Spectralis HRA+OCT; Heidelberg Engineering) was not suitable, so instead I manually measured thicknesses using custom scripts in ImageJ and excel VBA. This was tedious but not difficult.
Regards,
Felix Aplin
Dear Felix,
Many thanks. Currently going through a conundrum of whether to make measurements manually or utilize the automatic ones generated by the OCT. The argument against manual masurement would be operator bias but not knowing about the algorithm that the OCT actually uses can be reasoned against automatic measurements as well!!! Were you able to measure subfoveal and parafoveal choroidal thickness in your study?
Kind Regards
Hi Ahmadreza,
Great to have those sources. I will surely go through these.
While the segmentation has been incorporated in currently used Deep range imaging OCTs, little is known about how OCT actually measures the thicknesses and volumes. In absence of this, it may be difficult to take the automatic measurements as a source of data for studying on a particular subject matter!!!
Regards,
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