An ophthalmic surgical system for monitoring incision performance includes a laser device, a camera, and a computer. laser device delivers a laser beam with a laser setting energy towards a target to create optical breakdowns in the target. The camera generates images of the optical breakdowns in the target. The computer instructs the laser device to create the optical breakdowns in the target to yield a test pattern. The test pattern comprises regions of optical breakdowns, where each region was created with a different laser setting energy. From the images, the computer identifies a lowest energy region with substantially continuous optical breakdowns, and designates the laser setting energy used to create the identified region as a threshold energy.