A computer-assisted thermography system for the extraction, visualization and tracing of subcutaneous peripheral venous patterns

A system has been developed for the extraction, visualization, and tracing of subcutaneous peripheral venous patterns in clinical thermograms. Thermography provides a noninvasive and nonionizing imaging modality for evaluating peripheral venous disorders, localizing incompetent perforating veins in the legs, and mapping varicose venous networks for surgical planning. This system employs digital subtraction thermographic venography (DSTV) to extract the subcutaneous venous patterns from thermograms. Animating a sequence of these computer-processed frames creates a movie which permits the visualization of bloodflow in the peripheral subcutaneous veins. An algorithm for the automated tracing of DSTV-extracted vessel segments has been implemented as an operational mode of this system. This serves as a data reduction method which automatically calculates and stores estimates of lengths and diameters for user-selected vessel segments. A numerical diagnostic factor is then calculated based on these estimates