Purpose
Photographic documentation of macroscopic pathological changes occurring in human eye diseases is routinely used since several decades. Digital photography has simplified this challenge and improved resolution and quality of photographical documentation. Applying new photographic techniques - e.g. by the development of new software for the 3D image processing - opens new possibilities for the visualization of pathological changes of the eye. We present a new system for visualization of pathological changes of the human eye with a 3D software object modeller.
Methods
6 enucleated eyes from patients with intraocular tumours (2 women, 4 men: 62 to 81 years) were used for 3D photographic documentation. Using a conventional digital Nikon camera, photos of the eyes were taken on a printed mat and from diverse viewpoints in front of a plain backdrop. The shape of the object was automatically extracted from each photo and this information was used to build a high quality 3D mesh. The generated 3D picture allows visualization from every perspective by rotating the macroscopic eye structure. For this computer model system the 3DSOM pro Software (Creative Dimension Software, UK) was used. The textured eye model can be converted to a variety of formats (VRML, 3DS, Macromedia Schockware 3D, etc.).
Results
Excellent graphic documentation of enucleated tumor eyes can be obtained using the above described 3D photographic software assisted object modeller system. The created 3D images can be rotated in any axis by 360°, so that the spatial correlations of ocular structures are preserved. Finally magnification of photographs by zooming allows examining details of the eye pathological changes.
Conclusions
The 3D software modeller allows the automatic generation of 3D pictures from photographs of enucleated tumour eyes. This innovative imaging technique optimizes the clinical-pathological correlation. The simple data transfer of the 3D images onto electronic devices (computers, tablets, smartphones, etc.) using this documentation system could strongly improve telemedicine and medical teaching.
Keywords: 744 tumors •
639 pathology techniques •
552 imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound)