Method and apparatus for obtaining a three-dimensional map of tympanic membrane thickness

1. A method for acquiring a three-dimensional mapping of a physical specimen characterized by a surface and a refractive index, the method comprising:

a. obtaining a plurality of surface sub-images of a field of view of the surface of the physical specimen;

b. obtaining a depth-resolved profile of the physical specimen at one or more fixed locations on each of the plurality of surface sub-images;

c. extracting at least one of an image feature for use as a landmark for local registration of adjacent sub-images;

d. pairwise locally registering sub-images to define a set of transformation matrices, each transformation matrix characterizing a coordinate transformation between neighboring sub-images;

e. iteratively concatenating the transformation matrices so as to reference all of the transformation matrices to one of a plurality of coordinate frames of a plurality of sub-mosaics;

f. repeating the process of steps (d)-(e) so as to reference all of the transformation matrices to a unitary global coordinate frame of the field of view of the surface of the physical specimen; and

g. generating a three-dimensional globally co-registered mapping of the physical specimen based in part upon the depth-resolved profile at each of the plurality of locations.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising correcting for error due to accumulation of mismatch errors in global registration of sub-mosaics.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising interpolating sparsely-sampled areas in such a manner as to generate a smoothly colored map.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein performing at least one depth scan at the specified point on the surface sub-image includes obtaining and processing a plurality of depth scans at the specified point.

5. A method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising blending edges between neighboring sub-images.

6. A method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising interpolating between depths associated with successive spatial positions.

7. A method in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising a step of accounting for increased optical depth due to the refractive index of the physical specimen.

8. A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein the at least one depth scan is obtained using low-coherence interferometry.

9. A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein the physical specimen is a tympanic membrane of a subject.

10. A method in accordance with claim 9 , further comprising deriving a measure of the tympanic membrane or of a biofilm disposed thereupon.

11. A three-dimensional otoscopic mapping system comprising:

a. a hand-held probe having an otoscopic tip for insertion into an ear canal;

b. focusing optics for directing low-coherence light to ear tissue via the ear canal and for collecting scattered light within a field-of-view of a sub-image of the ear tissue;

c. a dichroic beamsplitter for reflecting light scattered by a tympanic membrane of a subject onto a camera;

d. a low-coherence interferometer system for analyzing a depth profile at a plurality of points on the tympanic membrane; and

e. a processor for mosaicking a plurality of the sub-images and the depth profile at each of the plurality of sub-images to form a map combining two-dimensional surface data with depth data in a visual representation.

12. A three-dimensional otoscopic mapping system in accordance with claim 11 , wherein the camera includes a detector array.

13. A three-dimensional otoscopic mapping system in accordance with claim 11 , further comprising a steering mirror for scanning the field-of-view of the sub-image across the tympanic membrane.