Journal of Modern Optics

ISSN: 0950-0340 (Print) 1362-3044 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tmop20

Design and implementation of optical system for

Placido-disc topography

Chenghua Sui, Shengjie Wo, Pinggen Cai, Nan Gao, Danyang Xu, Yonghao
Han & Chunnian Du

To cite this article: Chenghua Sui, Shengjie Wo, Pinggen Cai, Nan Gao, Danyang Xu, Yonghao
Han & Chunnian Du (2017) Design and implementation of optical system for Placido-disc
topography, Journal of Modern Optics, 64:21, 2413-2419, DOI: 10.1080/09500340.2017.1366567

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2017.1366567

Published online: 31 Aug 2017.

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 Journal of Modern Optics, 2017
VOL. 64, NO. 21, 2413–2419
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2017.1366567

Design and implementation of optical system for Placido-disc topography

Chenghua Suia,b,c, Shengjie Woa,b,c, Pinggen Caia,b,c, Nan Gaod, Danyang Xua,b,c, Yonghao Hana,b,c and
Chunnian Dua,b,c
a
Center for Optics & Optoelectronics Research (COOR), Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China; bCollaborative Innovation Center
for Information Technology in Biological and Medical Physics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China; cCollege of Science, Zhejiang
University of Technology, Hangzhou, China; dCollege of Computer, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Corneal topography provides powerful support in the diagnosis and treatment of corneal disease by Received 15 May 2017
displaying the corneal surface topography in data or image format. To realize the precise detection Accepted 3 August 2017
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 03:59 03 October 2017

of corneal surface topography, an optical system for the corneal topography that is based on a KEYWORDS
Placido disc is designed, which includes a ring distribution on a Placido disc, an imaging system Optical design; corneal
and a collimating illumination system. First, a mathematical model that is based on the corneal topography; Placido disc;
topography working principles is established with MATLAB to determine the distribution of white- imaging lens
and-black rings on the Placido disc, in which the ellipsoid facial rings-target of the Placido disc is
utilized. Second, the imaging lens structure is designed and optimized by Zemax software. Last,
the collimating illumination lens structure is designed by paraxial ray trace equations. The quality
of the corneal topography, which is based on our designed optical system, is evaluated. The high-
contrast image of uniformly distributed white-and-black rings is observed through the CCD camera.
Our optical system for the corneal topography has high precision, with a measuring region of the
cornea with a diameter of approximately 10 mm. Therefore, the creation of this optical system offers
guidance for designing and improving the optical system of Placido-disc topography.

1. Introduction accuracy of Placido-disc topography depends on many

The cornea accounts for the majority of the refractive
power of the human eye. Therefore, accurate measure-
ment of the corneal surface is helpful in the diagnosis
of corneal diseases (1), such as conical cornea, corneal
marginal degeneration and orthokeratology lens fitting
(2). With improvements in modern technology, a variety
of commercially available topographies have been devel-
oped to accurately detect the corneal surface topography
from almost the entire cornea and display it in data or
image format (1–7). They can not only evaluate the ini-
tial corneal shape but also monitor the induced changes
by the refractive surgery or the use of alignment fitted
corneal lenses (2,5). Thus, corneal topographies provide
valuable information for designing refractive surgery and
are essential to modern contact lens fitting.
Various commercial corneal topographies may be based
on more than one principle, such as the Placido disc (3),
slit scanning (4), optical coherence tomography (5,6) and
keratometer (7). In current modern corneal topographies,
the Placido disc is considered to be the norm for screening
the human corneal surface as a topography due to its accu-
racy and repeatability of topographical measurement. The
factors, such as the optical quality of its components, the
light source properties, and the mechanical vibrations.
However, few published studies address the content of the
design of optical systems in corneal topographies.
In this paper, an optical system for Placido-disc topog-
raphy is designed; its quality is evaluated by simulation
and detection of artificial and human corneas. The design
can be primarily separated into three parts: a rings dis-
tribution of the Placido disc, an imaging system and a
collimating illumination system. (1) The distribution of
white-and-black rings on the Placido disc is determined
by the mathematical model. (2) The imaging lens structure
is designed and optimized by Zemax software. (3) The
collimating illumination lens system is realized by paraxial
ray trace equations (PRTE).
2.  Working principle of Placido-disc topography
Our system is based on the Placido-disc principle.
Figure 1 shows the structure of the projection system of
the Placido-disc topography. The Placido disc is com-
posed of a series of black-and-white concentric rings, in

CONTACT  Chenghua Sui  suich@zjut.edu.cn

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2414   C. SUI ET AL.
Figure 1.  Schematic diagram of projection system of Placido-
Downloaded by [Australian Catholic University] at 03:59 03 October 2017
disc topography. The black-and-white concentric rings are on
the Placido disc, white for the light transmission part, black for
the opaque part. LED back light source is on the backside of the
Placido disc. A lens imaging system is installed in the centre of the
Placido disc.
which white rings enable light transmission and black
rings comprise the opaque part. A small hole is located
in the centre of the Placido-disc rings-target for placing
the lens imaging system. After the light is emitted by the
LED back light source on the backside of the Placido disc,
the black-and-white rings on the Placido disc are pro-
jected onto the patient’s cornea, and the rings are viewed
as a reflection of the cornea through the imaging lens to
an image on a CCD camera. In the case of no pathological
changes on the corneal surface, the reflection rings are
equally spaced symmetric concentric circles. If the cor-
neal surface is astigmatic and irregular, the rings will be
distorted. Closer rings indicate higher curvature in the
region of the cornea, which is similar to the terrain con-
tour measurement method (8). Therefore, the changes of
corneal curvature at different locations can be estimated
by analysing the deformation degree of concentric rings
on the image (9).
3.  Design of optical system
3.1.  Determination of the rings distribution on the
Placido disc
General Placido-disc topographies include differ-
ent rings-targets: conical, planar and ellipsoid (10).
Compared with these three types, a conical rings-target
has a substantially larger number of rings with high meas-
uring precision and a high machining accuracy require-
ment, whereas a planar rings-target has fewer rings with
simple processing, a small measuring range and low accu-
racy. In this paper, we chose the ellipsoid rings-target for
Figure 2. Mathematical first imaging model of Placido disc. Arc
BAC is a cross section of Placido disc, in which A is a point in a
ring, B is a position of the centre hole and C is the endpoint of
the rings-target on the Placido disc. Semicircle with radius OD
represents the cornea. A′ is the virtual image of A after corneal
reflection.
the Placido disc due to its excellent measurement accu-
racy and low processing requirement. Referring to the
domestic and foreign patents and operations manual, we
employed the 24-ring ellipsoid Placido disc to achieve
high precision and repeatability and reduce the process-
ing costs (11,12).
To determine the rings distribution on the Placido
disc, we established a mathematical model by MATLAB
to resolve it. The cornea can act as a convex mirror, as
shown in Figure 2. Arc BAC that is a cross section of the
Placido disc can be imaged by corneal refection. A′ is a vir-
tual image of A at a ring on the Placido disc that is imaged
according to the convex mirror imaging principle as:
1 1 1 2( )
− = � = p<0 ,
p q f r (1)
where p = AD is the object distance, q = DA′ is the image
distance, and f ′ and r are the focal length and radius of
spherical mirror, respectively. We assume
√ that the coordi-
nate of point A is (x, y); thus, p = r − x 2 + y 2. Inserting
it into Equation (1) to obtain:
√
2
r − r x2 + y2
q= √ (2)
2 x2 + y2 − r
After assuming that the coordinate of point A′ is (x0, y0),
the relation between the coordinate (x0, y0) and (x, y) exists
as:
x0 x
y0
= .
y (3)
 JOURNAL OF MODERN OPTICS   2415

Inserting Equations (2) and (3) into Equation (1), we

obtain:
�
⎛ 2 ⎞
⎜ r − r x2 + y2 ⎟ x
x0 = ⎜r − � ⎟� , (4)
⎜ 2 x 2
+ y 2
− r ⎟ x2 + y2
⎝ ⎠

�
⎛ 2 ⎞
⎜ r − r x2 + y2 ⎟ y
y0 = ⎜r − � ⎟� . (5)
⎜ 2 2
2 x +y −r ⎠ x +y ⎟ 2 2
⎝

The coordinate of the image point (x0, y0) can be deter-

mined by (x, y) with Equations (4) and (5). As the point Figure 3.  Image plane of the cross section on Placido disc
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calculated by Matlab software. The left elliptical curve represents

(x, y) is on an ellipse, the cross section on Placido disc, the middle semicircle represents
2
the corneal surface, and the right curve represents the virtual
x2 y image of the cross section on Placido disc. Here, the major and
+ = 1, (6)
a2 b2 minor axes of ellipse are respective 81.6 and 42.3 mm, the radius
of corneal is 8.0 mm.
where a and b are the major axis and minor axis of the
ellipse, respectively. Combining Equations (3) and (6) the image point (x0, y0), we can obtain the corresponding
，the object point (x, y) can be determined by the image object point (x, y) on the ellipse, as shown in Figure 4(b).
point (x0, y0) as: According to the elliptic Equation (6) and the distri-
√ bution of the rings as shown in Figure 4(b), the rings on
√
√ a2 b2 x0
x= √ the Placido disc were drawn using Solidworks software, as
(
√ x )2 ,
(7)
2 y0 shown in Figure 5. When we observe the rings from the
0
b + a
y 0
side of the Placido disc, we determine that the widths of
the concentric black-and-white circles increase from the
√ centre to the periphery. When we observe it at the front
√
√ a2 b2
y= √ of the Placido disc, concentric circles appear.
√ ( x )2 .
(8)
2
y
0
b + a
0

3.2.  Design of imaging system

Based on Equations (4) and (5), the virtual image plane In this paper, the surface array CCD (ICX424AL, SONY)
of the cross section on the Placido disc imaged by cor- was employed. The effective size is 4.8 mm × 3.6 mm, and
neal refection was calculated using MATLAB software; the the effective resolution is 659 pixels × 494 pixels, in which
result is shown in Figure 3. Conversely, if the coordinate of one pixel size is 7.4 μm × 7.4 μm. Then, we can calculate
the image point is known, we can obtain the object point the related parameters of the optical system based on the
on the ring of the Placido disc by Equations (7) and (8). parameters of CCD:
Now, we project the virtual image in Figure 3 on a plane
and divide the projection into 23 equal sections, as shown (1) The upper limit of image height:
in Figure 4(a). B′ and C′ are the image points of B and
C, respectively. Assuming that the vertical coordinates of √
h� = 4.82 + 3.62 ∕2 = 3.0 mm. (10)
B′ and C′ are yB′ and yC′ , yB′ − yC′ is the vertical distance
between B′ and C′ on the projection plane. Setting the
(2) According to Nyquist’s law, the cut-off frequency
width of each imaging ring to Δd, we obtain:
of the system is:
yC� − yB�
Δd = . (9) 1 1
23 fc = × 1000 = × 1000 = 67.6 lp/mm. (11)
2s 2 × 7.4
Therefore, each imaging ring’s vertical coordinate is yB′ , yB′
+ Δd, … yB′ + 23Δd. After determining the coordinates of Here, fc is the cut-off frequency, and s is the pixel size.
 2416   C. SUI ET AL.

Figure 4. Schematic diagram of the image projection (a) and the distribution of the rings in Placido disc (b).
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Figure 5. The side (a) and front (b) views of Placido disc in Solidworks.

The corneal horizontal diameter and vertical diame- Table 1. Optic specifications of the given system.
ter of Asian adults are approximately 11.0 and 10.0 mm, Parameter Value
respectively. According to the daily diagnosis experience, Operating Distance 75.0 mm
the required measurement coverage of the corneal surface Focal length 20.0 mm
Image height 2.8 mm
exceeds 9.3 mm (13). Thus, the operating distance of the Resolution 67.0 lp/mm
apparatus cannot be too long or too short. We designed it Aperture 6.5 mm
Object height 6.0 mm
as 75.0 mm to guarantee an adequate measurement range
of the cornea. The aperture stop of the imaging lens is the
centre hole in the Placido disc, whose diameter is 6.5 mm quality on the axis and near axis, we primarily focus on
[Table 1]. Thus, the imaging system consists of a small reducing the primary spherical aberration, coma, and axial
field of view and small relative aperture. We choose tradi- and lateral chromatic aberration rather than high-order
tional symmetric achromatic lenses, as the lens doublet can aberrations. After a series optimization by Zemax soft-
reduce axial and transverse chromatic aberrations and cor- ware, the final imaging lens system structure is shown in
rect spherical aberration and coma. To ensure the imaging Figure 6, in which the system’s focus is 20.01  mm, the
 JOURNAL OF MODERN OPTICS   2417

Figure 6. Imaging lens structure obtained from final optimization. Different colours represent the imaging paths with different object
heights.
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Figure 7. MTF curves (a) and spot diagram (b) of imaging lens. The black line in Figure 7(a) indicates that the maximum theoretically
possible contrast that can be achieved is almost 85% at the 67.0 lp/mm frequency. Additionally, the four coloured lines correspond to
how the imaging lenses perform at the height of 0 mm (blue), 1.50 mm (yellow), 2.00 mm (red) and 5.00 mm (green). The corresponding
spot diagram of these four points is shown in Figure 7(b). The root-mean-square (RMS) and geometry (GEO) radius are 3.658 and 6.440
µm, respectively, at the height of 0 mm; 2.964 and 6.129 µm at the height of 2.00 mm; 3.238 and 6.445 µm at the height of 1.50 mm; and
4.877 and 10.859 µm at the height of 5.00 mm.

back-operating distance is 19.20 mm, the tube length is
17.84 mm and the image height is 2.8 mm [Table 1].
To evaluate the quality of our designed imaging system,
the MTF curves and spot diagram have been calculated by
the theory according to the parameters (see Table 1) of the
imaging system, as shown in Figure 7. The MTF curves
have been calculated on full field and paraxial field over
a frequency range from 0 lp/mm to 67.0 lp/mm [Figure
7(a)]. The MTF value is greater than 0.5 at 33.5 lp/mm and
is approximately 0.4 at 67.0 lp/mm. This indicates that our
designed imaging system has high resolution and contrast.
The spot diagram is employed to evaluate situations of
astigmatism, coma, spherical aberration and chromatic
aberration. Observing the spot diagram [Figure 7(b)], the
root mean squares (RMS) of dispersion spot sizes of four
points are smaller than the CCD pixel size of 7.4 μm. All
dispersion spot sizes are similar to the Airy spot, which
indicates that the system has high resolution for imaging
and the image is in focus.
3.3.  Lens design for collimating illumination system
To precisely align the imaging lens and the human eye
along an ideal straight line, we added a half reflecting and
half transparent mirror at the back of the imaging lens.
Then, a single LED lamp was employed as a point source
to emit a bundle of light rays. The light rays passed the
lens set and became the parallel light rays to illuminate
the half reflecting and half transparent mirror. For the lens
set, we combined a positive lens with a negative lens to
reduce the length of the system and took a reverse design.
For convenience, the lens was assumed to be a thin lens
and was fabricated by the frequently employed glass K9.
As shown in Figure 8, the parallel incident light passes
through lenses and focuses on one point according to
PRTE as (14)
n� u� = nu − y𝜙, (12)
yj+1 = yj + u� d, (13)
where n and n′ are the media refractive index of the object
space and image space; here, they are both 1. u and u′
are the respective incident and exit angles. y is the height
between incident light and optic axis, in which the sub-
script j represents the j-th refraction. ϕ is the focal power
of lens. d is the distance between two lenses. According
to Equations (12) and (13), we can obtain:
{
y2 = y1 + u1� d1
,
u1� = u1 − y1 𝜙1 (14)
 2418   C. SUI ET AL.
Figure 8.  Paraxial collimating illumination system. Here d1, the
distance between two lenses, is 4.0 mm. d2, the distance for
the second lens and the focal point, is 12.5 mm. u and u′ are
the incident and exit angles, y1 and y2 are the heights between
incident light and optic axis, in which y1 is 2.3 mm. ϕ1 and ϕ2, the
respective focal powers of positive lens and negative lens, are
respective 0.0685 and −0.0448.
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Figure 9. Collimating illumination lens system in Zemax. The first
faces of negative and positive lenses are plane, and the second
faces of them are curved faces with the radii 11.56 and −7.56 mm
respectively. Here the inclined plane is a half reflecting and half
transparent mirror.
{ represents Sagittal and Tangential directions, 0.00 and 5.00 mm
y3 = y2 + u2� d2
. (15)
u2� = u2 − y2 𝜙2
When we performed a ray tracing calculation to obtain the
size parameters of the lens set, the values of parameters y1,
u1, d1 and d2 were set first. Then, ϕ1 and ϕ2 are calculated
with known y1, u1, d1 and d2. For easy processing, one side
of the positive and negative lenses were fabricated into
the plan; thus, they were plane convex and plane concave
lenses (Figure 9). Their curvature radii can be obtained
according to Equation (16)
( )
( ) 1 1
𝜙1(2) = n1 − 1 − , (16)
r1(3) r2(4)
ϕ1(2) represents ϕ1 and ϕ2, r1(3) and r2(4) are the curvature
radii for the curved surfaces in the plane convex lens
and the plane concave lens, respectively, and n1 is the
refractive index of the glass. After the optimization with
Zemax, Figure 9 shows the structure of the collimating
illumination lens system that is composed of a negative
lens, a positive lens and a half reflecting and half trans-
parent mirror.
Figure 10.  The whole imaging system with imaging lens and
collimating illumination lens.
Figure 11.  Actual measurement of MTF curve. Here S and T
are the object heights.
4.  Experimental results and discussion
After processing the imaging lens and collimating illu-
mination lens, we assembled them into an integral whole
imaging system, as illustrated in Figure 10, in which part
a is the collimating illumination lenses (see Figure 9) and
part b is the imaging lenses (see Figure 6). To verify the
quality of our imaging system, the imaging lens’ optic
characteristics are measured by Image Master®Universal,
which is produced from Germany Tropics. The corre-
sponding MTF curve was measured on a paraxial field
and full field with a frequency range from 0 lp/mm to 70.0
lp/mm, as shown in Figure 11. The MTF value is greater
than 0.5 at 33.5 lp/mm and greater than 0.3 at 67.6 lp/mm,
which is consistent with the results of our simulation test
in Figure 7(a). Therefore, the excellent imaging resolution
of the imaging system can be proven.
The whole imaging system and Placido disc were assem-
bled into the integral instrument, as shown in Figure 12(a).
The instrument was tested on the human eye and an artifi-
cial eye by adjusting the cross hair at the centre of the cornea

Figure 12. The whole machine system (a) and the corneal topographies for artificial eye (b) and human eye (c).
and focusing the imaging lens. As shown in Figure 12(b)
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and (c), the black-and-white imaging rings of the Placido
disc that were reflected from the human eye and the artificial
eye were equally spaced symmetric concentric circles with
high contrast, high resolution and sharp edges. The reflected
rings are circular and perfectly and uniformly spaced, which
indicates that the cornea is a spherical surface. The image
taken by our system has high quality. Actually，the corneal
vertex may deviate from the optical axis of optic system
during the normal shooting. In our system, the collimating
illumination lens system has been designed to reduce the
deviation. Moreover, the deviation can be further reduced
by making a correction in subsequent image processing.
Therefore, our system can be used to diagnose the patient
by tracing the photographed rings.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, an optical system for corneal topography based
on the Placido disc was designed, including the rings dis-
tribution on the Placido disc rings-target, imaging lens and
collimating illumination lens. First, 24 rings on the ellipsoid
Placido disc was determined using MATLAB software. Then,
the imaging lens structure was designed and optimized by
Zemax software. Last, the collimating illumination lens was
designed by PRTE. Imaging the Placido ring reflections of
the human eye and artificial eye has proven that high-quality
images can be taken by our instrument. Additionally, our
optical system has the advantages of simple structure, small
size, easy processing and low cost. Therefore, our design has
practical value in the design and improvement of the corneal
topography based on the Placido disc.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
JOURNAL OF MODERN OPTICS   2419
Funding
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation
(NSF) [grant number 11604295]; Zhejiang Provincial Nat-
ural Science Foundation of China (ZJNSFC) [grant number
LQ17C100002]; Educational Commission of Zhejiang Prov-
ince of China [grant number Y201636360].
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