Optical path reconstruction for dental OCT imaging

Dental imaging is a promising OCT application but has not yet been translated into clinical practice. Current limitations include the visibility of deeper structures, multiple-scattered light and shadowed regions. Here, we show the development of a setup and software for the 3D measurement of teeth from multiple angles and a reconstruction of refraction and optical path delay in the OCT volumes based on a surface segmentation and an estimated refractive index. The reconstruction using Snell’s law is validate by a comparison with X-ray micro-computed tomography (µCT) and the spatial registration of both volumes.