Development of a new infrared imaging system: an infrared image superimposed on the visible image

The infrared imaging, especially far infrared thermography, is a typical non-invasive measurement method in clinical medicine. However, the applications have been used mainly in clinical testing laboratory, and not used in outpatient clinics or operation rooms with on-line mode. The reason exist on the difficulty of the positional identification from the infrared image. The authors have been testing combination of visible image and infrared image. Recently, compact non-cool infrared cameras become commercially available. Using the camera, a new infrared imaging system by which one can observe superimposed infrared image on its visible image have been developed. The image from an object is separated infrared and visible light using Inconel metal coated mirror and guides to an infrared camera (Thermal Vision LAIRD 3A) and a video camera (Handyscope) separately. The measured images are mixed digitally with a image mixer (Digital Video Mixer MX-1) and display a overlapped image on a monitor. The developed system was tested on an animal experiment and was evaluated its feasibility for clinical usage.