Patent ID: 8425497

Claim:
A method of making an incision in eye tissue during a cataract surgical procedure, the method comprising: operating an imaging system, coupled to an electronics control system comprising a computer, so as to acquire image data from locations distributed throughout a volume of a crystalline lens of a patient and construct one or more images of the patient's eye tissues from the image data, wherein the one or more images include an image of at least a portion of the crystalline lens; identifying, using the control system, a cutting region based on the image data, the cutting region being at least partially defined by an anterior cutting boundary and a posterior cutting boundary and including a portion of the crystalline lens; generating a beam of light using a pulsed laser system guided by the control system so as to scan the beam in a pattern within the cutting region and segment the crystalline lens into a plurality of pieces for subsequent removal, the segmentation of the crystalline lens including: focusing the beam at a first focal point located at a first depth in the eye tissue; scanning the beam on the eye while focused at the first depth so as to create an incision pattern within the cutting region at the first depth; focusing the beam at a second focal point located at a second depth in the eye tissue different than the first depth; and scanning the beam on the eye while focused at the second depth so as to create an incision pattern within the cutting region at the second depth.