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A New Method for Blood Velocimetry in the Microcirculation
Author(s) -
Hitt Darren L.,
Lowe Mary L.,
Tincher Juvena R.,
Watters J. Michael
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
microcirculation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.793
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1549-8719
pISSN - 1073-9688
DOI - 10.3109/10739689609148299
Subject(s) - microcirculation , computation , blood flow , flow (mathematics) , velocimetry , optical flow , computer science , process (computing) , vector field , intensity (physics) , optics , algorithm , computer vision , mathematics , physics , geometry , image (mathematics) , medicine , radiology , operating system
We describe a simple new method for computing two‐dimensional velocity vector fields of blood flows in microvascular networks. This method, known as optical flow, requires a time sequence of two or more images obtained by a process such as conventional videomicroscopy. There is no need to distinguish individual cells provided clear variations in the light intensity levels are present in the images. The result of the computation reveals the velocity distribution in the microvascular network and the geometry of the blood vessels. Although various implementations of the optical flow technique exist, we have found that the spatial correlation algorithm of Anandan performs best for microcirculatory flows. This report is an introduction to the application of optical flow to the microcirculation and provides instructions on how to obtain and run the codes.