Three-dimensional visualization of confocal sections of in vivo human fundus and optic nerve.

A confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope was used to image the human fundus in vivo at a series of 32 sections from near the retinal surface to deep within the optic nerve head. The optical sections were digitized and aligned to compensate for eye movement during image acquisition and stored on a computer. This registered stack of optical sections was reconstructed using specialized computational software. The three-dimensional volume rendering of the stack of optical sections results in a new way to view the in vivo optic nerve in three dimensions. This technique is of clinical importance since structural factors of the lamina cribrosa of the optic nerve may be important in glaucomatous damage. There may be diagnostic potential in the in vivo observation of the three-dimensional structure of the optic nerve.