Method of filtering data for the objective classification of eyes

A method for classifying a patient's eye, comprising the steps of:

• a. obtaining normal eye wavefront aberration data from a representative sample of normal eyes;
• b. obtaining abnormal eye wavefront aberration data from a representative sample of a first class of abnormal eyes;
• c. fitting the normal and abnormal eye wavefront aberration data with a basis function to decompose the normal and abnormal eye wavefront aberration data into normal and abnormal eye mathematical components;
• d. examining the normal and abnormal eye mathematical components to develop mathematical optical filters capable of discriminating between normal and abnormal eyes, using statistical methods to define a probability distribution;
• e. obtaining wavefront aberration data from the patient's eye;
• f. fitting the patient's wavefront aberration data with a basis function to decompose the patient's wavefront aberration data into the patient's set of mathematical components;
• g. examining the patient's set of mathematical components using the mathematical optical filters to generate a patient filter value;
• and
• h. classifying the patient's eye by comparing the patient filter value with the probability distribution.