• Greater depth of focus compared with conventional direct viewing system using plano-concave contact lenses.
• Integration with conventional plano-concave contact lens system, so that one lens can be removed and replaced by another lens easily. The miniature indirect lenses are compact, lightweight in comparison to other panoramic lenses. Thus their size allows manipulation on the eye without interfering with placement of the surgical instruments.
• Ability to visualize through a small pupil, intraocular lens or keratoprosthesis with a panoramic or wide field of view. Currently with conventional viewing, a small, limited field of view is achieved.
• Improved ability to monitor the intraoperative injection of perfluorocarbon liquids so tat it does not go above the level of retinal breaks if traction persists.
• Ability to visualize the peripheral retinal breaks in retinal detachments when none could be seen preoperatively.
• Ability to see tractional relationships in proliferative vitreoretinopathy under perfluorocarbon liquids, such as: anteroposterior traction, anterior displacement of the retina, residual epiretinal membranes and star folds, subretinal membranes.
• Improved visualization in the phakic or pseudophakic eye during fluid-air exchange for internal drainage and endophotocoagulation. Useful for applying growth factors or autologous serum onto macular holes.
• Allows better visualization during endophotocoagulation by allowing a complete view of the fundus and the area of the scleral buckle. Endophotocoagulation can be applied more completely and precisely.
• Allows improved visualization during peripheral retinotomies for the release of traction or retinal incarceration, or for the retinotomies required to extract subretinal membranes.
• A stereo image inverter with maximal light transmission was developed using a uniblock prism cluster consisting of an Abbe modification of the Porro prism. The prism cluster can be perfectly adjusted to any surgical microscope eliminationg diplopia (double vision). No other system has this unique capability.

The A.V.I. Panoramic Viewing System comprises of several elements: a stereo image inverter, 2 wide field, indirect aspheric contact lenses, lens handles, lens retaining ring and wide field illumination that fits through a single 20 gauge sclerotomy.

With the advent of the transparent image inverter and two miniaturized contact lenses a high-resolution view of the entire fundus was made possible. Panoramic views through this system allow the selection of 68-degree field of view up to the equator or a 130-degree field of view up to the ora serrata. Current direct biomicroscopic viewing allows only a 20 or 35-degree field of view. Other wide field systems allow only a 70-degree field of view, which does not offer the precision and higher resolution image of the A.V.I. system. This approach added new dimentions to the surgical capability in complex cases of retinal detachment.