Abstract
Video capillaroscopy is useful in many studies of the microcirculation. Our research is currently focused on understanding sickle cell anemia, a disorder which causes red blood cells to become deoxygenated, polymerize and makes the transport of cells by the microcirculation difficult. Measurements are made with a hand-held microscope which is usually placed in the oral cavity, on the nail-fold or in the eye. Useful information can be obtained such as the shape of the capillaries and the flow rate of cells in the capillaries. There are challenges associated with making such measurements such as movement artifacts and low contrast. Image processing therefore has an important role to play in this application. In this paper video capillaroscopy movies from sickle cell disorder sufferers are processed. Firstly motion artifacts are reduced by correlating consecutive frames and using major features in the images to overlay them. Secondly image contrast is enhanced by linear transformation that expands the range of the gray-level map. Results will demonstrate improvements in image quality which should allow more accurate measurement of blood flow to be obtained.