Thermal imaging of a vein of the forearm: Analysis and thermal modelling

We analyse the infrared images obtained on a human forearm. In a first part, we present a basic thermal model explaining the temperature at the surface of the skin in the presence of sources such as veins. In a second part, we propose to analyse the infrared images obtained after thermal solicitation. We show how the use of low amplitude, health-safe, periodical heating or a transient thermal solicitation allows to improve notably the contrast of the images and to extract the radius, depth and the blood flow velocity in a vein.