Identifying the major blood vessels during laparoscopic surgeries is important to prevent injuries to the vessel that could complicate the procedure. Current mitigation strategies involve the use of fluorescence or contrast dyes, but present challenges such as patient preparation time, potential adverse reactions, and the need for specialized imaging modalities. In this study, we explore the potential of Near InfraRed (NIR) bands for dye-free major blood vessel identification, the generation of a False-RGB image with NIR bands that closely resemble the RGB image of tissues, and the enhancement of this image using a proposed contrast enhancement technique. Ten multispectral images in the NIR spectrum were captured, and a False-RGB image was generated using the 702 nm, 821 nm, and 833 nm bands as the red, green, and blue channels, respectively. The contrast enhancement algorithm successfully increased the vein contrast with an average gain of 1.5, as measured by the Michelson contrast ratio.
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