Design Considerations for a Real-Time Ocular Counterroll Instrument

A video-based technique for measuring the torsional movement of the eye (counterroll) by processing video images of the eyeball is presented. Spectral estimates show that most of the variance of the iris image is in the angular direction. It will be demonstrated that cross correlation between sequences that are obtained by circular sampling of the digitized image of the iris is sufficient to extract the counterroll information. Computation time for angular correlation is thus significantly reduced and real-time hardware implementation becomes feasible. As the result of a preprocessing step, we obtain the information about the horizontal and vertical movement of the eye and also the diameter of the pupil. To improve the measurement resolution, a fast second degree local least square interpolation of the cross-correlation function is used. Possible sources of error and the limitations of the algorithm will be studied. The results of the computer simulations made using the algorithm serve to experimentally confirm the error estimates. Application of the algorithm to photographically obtained image data from human subjects demonstrates its practicality on normal eyes. The system design for a device for measuring 3D movement of the eye will be discussed.