Customized models of ocular aberrations across the visual field during accommodation

We aimed to create individual eye models that accurately reproduce the empirical measurements of wave-front aberrations across the visual field at different accommodative states, thus providing a mechanistic explanation for the changes in the eye's aberration structure due to accommodation. Structural parameters of a generic eye model were optimized using optical design software to account for published measurements of wave-front aberrations measured for 19 individuals at 37 test locations over the central 30°-diameter visual field at eight levels of accommodative demand. Biometric data for individual eyes were used as starting values and normative data were used to constrain optimizations to anatomically reasonable values. Customizations of the accommodating eye model accurately accounted for ocular aberrations over the central 30° of visual field with an averaged root mean square fitting error typically below 0.2 μm at any given field location. Optimized structural parameters of the eye models were anatomically reasonable and changed in the expected way when accommodating. Accuracy for representing spherical aberration was significantly improved by relaxing anatomical constraints on the anterior surface of the lens to compensate for not including gradient-index media. Use of the model to compute pan-retinal image quality revealed large penalties of accommodative lag for activating photoreceptor responses to the retinal image.