The Aurora X3 research system is a free-standing OCT imaging platform that offers a full complement of hardware and software for the imaging of the human eye in a clinical setting. Our instrument includes pupil monitoring and a NIR scanning laser ophthalmoscope for faster patient alignment and imaging. The software can be adapted to various research applications, including variety of segmentation algorithms, functional calculations of, for example, retinal oxygen saturation and neural synaptic dropouts, and different morphological measurements.