Chromatic visualization of reflectivity variance within hybridized directional OCT images

This study presents a new method of visualizing hybridized images of retinal spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT) data comprised of varied directional reflectivity. Due to the varying reflectivity of certain retinal structures relative to angle of incident light, SDOCT images obtained with differing entry positions result in nonequivalent images of corresponding cellular and extracellular structures, especially within layers containing photoreceptor components. Harnessing this property, cross-sectional pathologic and non-pathologic macular images were obtained from multiple pupil entry positions using commercially-available OCT systems, and custom segmentation, alignment, and hybridization algorithms were developed to chromatically visualize the composite variance of reflectivity effects. In these images, strong relative reflectivity from any given direction visualizes as relative intensity of its corresponding color channel. Evident in non-pathologic images was marked enhancement of Henle?s fiber layer (HFL) visualization and varying reflectivity patterns of the inner limiting membrane (ILM) and photoreceptor inner/outer segment junctions (IS/OS). Pathologic images displayed similar and additional patterns. Such visualization may allow a more intuitive understanding of structural and physiologic processes in retinal pathologies.