Patent ID: 8092023

Claim:
A method of measuring tear film layer thickness(es) (TFLT), comprising: (a) capturing optical wave interference of specularly reflected light including a background signal from a region of interest of an ocular tear film while illuminated by a multi-wavelength light source in at least one first image by an imaging device; (b) capturing the background signal from the region of interest of the ocular tear film in at least one second image by the imaging device; (c) subtracting the at least one second image from the at least one first image to generate at least one resulting image containing the optical wave interference of the specularly reflected light from the region of interest of the ocular tear film with the background signal removed or reduced; (d) converting at least a portion of the at least one resulting image representing the optical wave interference of the specularly reflected light from at least a portion of the region of interest of the ocular tear film into at least one color-based value; (e) comparing the at least one color-based value to a tear film layer optical wave interference model; and (f) measuring the TFLT of the at least a portion of the region of interest of the ocular tear film based on the comparison of the at least one color-based value to the tear film layer optical wave interference model.