Prototype vein contrast enhancer

A proof-of-principle prototype Vein Contrast Enhancer (VCE) has been designed and constructed. The VCE is an instrument that makes vein access easier by capturing an infrared image of peripheral veins, enhancing the vein-contrast using software image processing, and projecting the enhanced vein-image back onto the skin using a modified commercial projector. The prototype uses software alignment to achieve alignment accuracy between the captured infrared image and the projected visible image of better than 0.06 mm. Figure 1 shows the prototype demonstrated in our laboratory.