Patent ID: 8375956

Claim:
A method for orienting a corrective program for eye surgery comprising the steps of: retrieving, by one or more processors, a reference data set comprising stored digital image data on an eye of a patient, the stored image data having been collected with the patient in a pre-surgical position and including image data on an extracorneal eye feature; collecting a real-time data set comprising real-time digital image data on the patient eye in a surgical position different from the pre-surgical position, the real-time image data including image data on the extracorneal eye feature; removing, by the one or more processors, pixel data from a first set of pixels of the reference data set to yield a reduced reference data set; removing, by the one or more processors, pixel data from a second set of pixels of the real-time data set to yield a reduced real-time data set, the first set disjoint from the second set; displaying a combined image comprising a superposition of the reduced reference and the reduced real-time data sets; determining whether the combined image indicates an adequate registration between the reference and the real-time data sets based upon the extracorneal eye feature data in the reduced reference and the reduced real-time data sets; and if the registration is not adequate, manipulating one of the reduced reference and the reduced real-time data sets until an adequate registration is achieved.