In the conventional art, there has been a problem that it is difficult to perform, with a high usability and at a high precision, authentication that accepts a wide range of variation of showing attitude of a hand or a finger and ensures obtaining a clear blood-vessel image of a finger. Provided is a blood-vessel image capturing apparatus including an opening portion formed in a surface of a housing, plural light sources disposed beside the opening portion and arranged in a lattice pattern, a sensor configured to obtain position information of a hand shown above the opening portion, a light amount control portion configured to select an irradiation light source to irradiate the hand from the plural light sources on a basis of the position information and control a light amount of the irradiation light source, and an image capturing portion configured to capture an image of a blood vessel included in a finger portion of the hand irradiated with light from the irradiation light source.

Systems, methods and devices are implemented for microscope imaging solutions. One embodiment of the present disclosure is directed toward an epifluorescence microscope. The microscope includes an image capture circuit including an array of optical sensor. An optical arrangement is configured to direct excitation light of less than about 1 mW to a target object in a field of view of that is at least 0.5 mm.sup.2 and to direct epi-fluorescence emission caused by the excitation light to the array of optical sensors. The optical arrangement and array of optical sensors are each sufficiently close to the target object to provide at least 2.5 μm resolution for an image of the field of view.

A system and method of correlating or coregistering medical images is disclosed herein that includes acquiring a sur-face image of the patient's skin surface using a surface detector assembly comprising a surface frame and a camera system registered to the surface frame. Positional coordinates of one or more surface landmarks in the surface image are determined and a medical image of the patient is acquired having the surface frame depicted therein. A second surface image of the patient's skin surface is ac-quired that at least partially overlaps the previously acquired surface image. Positional coordinates of one or more surface landmarks in the second surface image are determined and compared with surface landmarks in the previous surface image. Common surface landmarks are determined based on the comparison and the medical images are coregistered based on positional coordinates of the common surface landmarks.

A cannula insertion system for inserting a cannula into a human or animal body, includes a cannula and a cannula insertion device to hold and insert the cannula into the human or animal body in an insertion direction. The cannula insertion system includes a safety device configured to retract the cannula or to release the cannula from the cannula insertion device when a force exerted on the cannula in a direction perpendicular to the insertion direction results in exceeding a respective safety threshold value.

A non-contact blood vessel analyzer includes an image acquisition device and an image processing device. The image acquisition device acquires an image which is a moving image or successive still images of a blood vessel. The image processing device detects a beat and a thrill from temporal change of an index derived from brightness and/or chromaticity of the image.

A pressure based vessel locating system including a pressure based vessel locator device coupled to a needle or catheter. The pressure based vessel locator device can include a proximal end having an air permeable membrane, and a first chamber and a second chamber. The first chamber can be separated from a second chamber by an interior wall. Each of the first chamber and the second chamber include a proximal opening and a chamber opening having a pressure activated valve disposed therein. The pressure based vessel locator device can further include an air permeable membrane configured to cover proximal openings of the first chamber and the second chamber. Each of the chambers include a window enabling a user to observe the contents of each chamber. A method of identifying a blood vessel includes visually inspecting each chamber for the presence or absence of blood therein.

A method and system for automatic location of a target treatment structure, such as a pulmonary vein ostium, from an anatomical image. The method includes calculating a most likely path of blood flow through a pulmonary vein based on a cross-sectional area minimization technique and calculating pulmonary vein geometry as a function of length. For example, a pulmonary vein ostium may be located by analyzing a change in pulmonary vein dimensional size or other anatomical factors, such as absolute size. The method may also include determining tissue thickness at the pulmonary vein ostium or other treatment size for treatment dose optimization. The method may be an algorithm performed by a processing unit of a navigation system or other component of a medical system.

Fluorescence imaging with reduced fixed pattern noise is disclosed. A method includes actuating an emitter to emit a plurality of pulses of electromagnetic radiation and sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation resulting from the plurality of pulses of electromagnetic radiation with a pixel array of an image sensor. The method includes reducing fixed pattern noise in an exposure frame by subtracting a reference frame from the exposure frame. The method is such that at least a portion of the plurality of pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter comprises electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength from about 795 nm to about 815 nm.

A surgical treatment device is provided with: an action portion; a light emitting part that radiates laser light onto living tissue; a light receiving part that receives scattered light of the laser light scattered by the living tissue; a light detection unit that detects the intensity of the scattered light received by the light receiving part; a frequency analysis unit that obtains time-series data indicating a temporal change in the intensity of the scattered light detected by the light detection unit, to extract an amount of frequency spectrum shift of the scattered light, included in the time-series data; and a determination unit that determines a feature of a blood vessel in the living tissue on the basis of the amount of frequency spectrum shift.

A method of enhancing the visibility of blood vessels in a colour image captured by an image capturing device of a medical device, including, for at least some of the pixels of the image, the steps of: (a) processing data obtained from a first colour channel together with data obtained from a second colour channel to determine a value of a first parameter indicative of the intensity in the red spectrum relative to the total intensity of said pixel; (b) using said value of said first parameter and a first value of a user parameter to alter said pixel, the first value of the user parameter being based on user input, and wherein the strength of the alteration is dependent on both the value of said first parameter and the first value of said user parameter.