Vein visualization is a medical technology that shows a clinician the location of peripheral veins. It's sometimes called vein illumination or a vein finder. Modern vein visualization devices are hand-held and do not come in contact with the patient.

The most capable devices use Augmented Reality (AR) to project the vein pattern back on to the patients skin. AR is a technology that enhances what you see with the naked eye in order to give you more information about what you're looking at.

All vein visualization devices rely on the principal that the hemoglobin in the blood absorbs infrared light more than the surrounding tissues in the body. Infrared is invisible to the human eye so the device needs to take the vein image that it detects and re-project it back on to the patient in a visible color so that it becomes visible to the clinician.

The NextVein system shines infrared light on the body and then uses an infrared sensitive camera to see the infrared vein pattern. The image is processed using advanced algorithms to highlight the vein location and a micro projector then projects the vein pattern onto the patient.

A special mirror aligns the image seen by the camera and the enhanced image from the projector so they line up and deliver a crisp, accurate vein pattern. The camera/projector system is fully digital and has no moving parts.