Fig. 1. A visible-light image of a human carotid bifurcation exposed at the beginning of endarterectomy. The carotid artery is located at about 8 o'clock relative to the black and white sterile reflectance standards. The top two reflections in the black reflectance standard are the surgical lights, which are equipped with cold filters and emit little near-IR light. The two smaller reflections beneath the surgical light reflections are the tungsten sources for the near-IR camera. Images are collected at each wavelength with the near-IR sources on and off to enable correction for sample blackbody emission in the near-IR and for other light sources in the room.