Patent Document ID: 8996086
Application ID: 13235013
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A digital mapping system for mapping a tissue element, comprising: an access device configured to illuminate and image a tissue region wherein the tissue element may be found, the access device comprising a visible light source, a first infrared light source, and an image sensor; and a visualization system controller disposed in electrical communication with the access device, the visualization system controller comprising an image capture device that is adapted to capture using the image sensor a number of sets of image frames that each include “n” contiguous frames, where the controller is configured to: control the first infrared light source to illuminate the tissue region, and use the image capture device to capture at least one frame while the first infrared light source is illuminated, and generate a highlighting image representation of the tissue element within a tissue region based upon the captured frames; and then control the visible light source to illuminate the tissue region, and use the image capture device to capture most or all of the remaining frames of each set of image frames while the visible light source is illuminated, and generate a visible image stream of the tissue region; combine the highlighting image representation of the tissue element with the visible image stream, to generate a composite tissue image, where the composite tissue image is a video image comprising a visually continuous stream of the visible image with the highlighting image representation of the tissue element combined with the visually continuous stream; deliver the composite tissue image to an output device; wherein the tissue element comprises a vascular tissue element; wherein the visualization system controller is further configured to: identify the vascular tissue element as being at least one of a venous vascular tissue element and an arterial vascular tissue element; identify the at least one of the venous vascular tissue element and the arterial vascular tissue element as part of the composite tissue image; wherein the access device further comprises a second infrared light source, and wherein when identifying the vascular tissue element as being at least one of the venous vascular tissue element and the arterial vascular tissue element the visualization system controller is further configured to: control the second infrared light source to illuminate the tissue region, where the first infrared light source generates infrared light having a wavelength that is smaller than a wavelength of infrared light generated by the second infrared light source; subtract the first infrared image from the second infrared image to detect the vascular tissue element as being the venous vascular tissue element; subtract the second infrared image from the first infrared image to detect the vascular tissue element as being the arterial vascular tissue element; and wherein over the n frames of each set of frames each of the infrared light sources is controlled to illuminate for at least one of the frames, and the visible light source is controlled to illuminate for at least a portion of the remaining n−2 frames, and the visible image stream is buffered so that it is repeated over all of the n frames.