Patent ID: 6626894
Filing Date: 2003-09-30
Classification: A61B,A61F

Abstract:
A method of correcting vision on an unrestrained eye by ablating the eye's corneal tissue comprising:providing laser beam shots having a size uniform size, shape and intensity; selecting an area of the cornea to which the laser beam shots will be applied; selecting a spatially distributed pattern for the placement of the laser beam shots on the selected area of the cornea, the shot pattern selected so that any present laser beam shot in the shot pattern is sufficiently distant from an immediately preceding laser beam shot that a plume of ablated material from the preceding laser beam shot does not substantially interfere with the ablation of corneal tissue by the present laser beam shot; selecting an ablation pattern on the selected area of the cornea, corresponding to the selected shot pattern; the eye being unrestrained and capable of movement; and moving the shot pattern for the placement of the laser beam shots in relation to the movement of the eye, so that the correspondence between the ablation pattern and shot pattern is maintained during the eye movement, the shot pattern moved by translating the input laser beam shots independently along each of two orthogonal translation axes to produce an output laser beam shots for ablating a desired corneal area, an angle between the input laser beam shots and the output laser beam shots maintained substantially constant.