University of Toronto Researchers Build Online Glaucoma Simulator
Researchers at the University of Toronto have built an online simulator that is designed to give an improved visual representation of the deterioration caused by glaucoma. The simulator, built by Prof. Willy Wong and PhD candidate Yan Li of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and their collaborators, aims to depict the disease from the patient’s perspective.
“If you do an internet search for what glaucoma looks like, the images returned are tunnel vision with the periphery blacked out. There’s very little truth to this,” Prof. Wong of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering, said in a university article. “What’s really happening is patches of your visual field are losing their spatial integrity – more what you might see when you just wake up, when you’re not really focused in.”
Prof. Wong and Mr. Li’s online simulator is based on a data-driven model they developed to help quantify glaucoma measurements. Their model, which takes into consideration the physiological mechanism of the eye, was recently published in a paper in the journal Translational Vision Science & Technology.