Multicriteria assessment of optical coherence tomography using non-raster trajectories

This article presents a qualitative, quantitative, and experimental analysis of optical coherence tomography (OCT) volumes obtained using different families of non-raster trajectories. We propose a multicriteria analysis to be used in the assessment of scan trajectories used in obtaining OCT volumetric point cloud data. The novel criteria includes exploitation/exploration ratio of the OCT data obtained, smoothness of the scan trajectory and fast preview of the acquired OCT data in addition to conventional criteria; time and quality (expressed as volume similarity rather than slice-by-slice image quality). The set of criteria proposed will be useful in assessing OCT scan trajectories for optimisation in various applications including robot assisted in vivo optical biopsy. We show in this paper that the rate of data acquisition is improved without degrading the OCT volume quality by scanning using non-raster trajectories (they are fast, smooth, and make the galvanometer scanners have less wear and tear). In particular, the rosette scan trajectory, which was the preferred non-raster trajectory, provided a balanced performance in having better clarity at the centre and periphery of the scanned object.