Thermal Imaging for Localization of Anterior Forearm Subcutaneous Veins

Abstract

The anterior forearm recognition systems are very popular identify the subcutaneous veins, mostly by devices operating real-time. Real time projection systems are carried out by handheld devices with a near infrared (NIR) camera and a laser projector to choose venipuncture sites; however what we propose in this paper is an easier and more reliable way using infrared thermal (IR-T) camera. At the forearm some veins like Cephalic vein are mostly so concealed to detect by NIR cameras, therefore we propose an alternative method for localization of the whole vein system without preprocessing. Briefly in the thermograms, the forearm is segmented from the surrounding by crisp 2- means and the vein system is reconstructed on blank images by directional curvature method. All directional curvatures are combined by addition for merging the layers and highlighting mutual veins. The preliminary results are promising since all the vein system is revealed with invisible veins without any preprocessing.