Olympus Optical Company, Ltd.

Kiyoshi Tsuji

Kenji Kimura

Masahito Goto

Hideaki Ishihara

Akira Hasegawa

Akinobu Uchikubo

Tsutomu Hirai

Susumu Takahashi

Hisao Yabe

Kimihiko Nishioka

Takeaki Nakamura

Takeshi Yokoi

Masahide Kanno

Hiroshi Matsui

Hiromasa Suzuki

Shinichi Nishigaki

Akihiko Mochida

Yoshihiro Okada

Mitsunobu Ono

Jun Yoshinaga

Akibumi Ishikawa

Yoshikazu Tojo

Akihiro Miyashita

Kazuhiko Ozeki

Kohji Takamura

A medical system having an endoscope probe intubated into a body, a signal processing circuit for processing a signal for the probe and an electric source circuit insulated from a commercial electric source. A part of the signal processing circuit connected to the probe is isolated by an isolation circuit to secure the safety. An impedance element is employed to prevent a malfunction by reducing an emission/permeation of noises. No adverse influence is thereby exerted on outside units.

Endoscope system having reduced noise emission/permeation

A solid-state imaging apparatus comprises a fast driving means that drives a solid-state imaging device at a high speed for the preservation time for one screen in a solid-state imaging device; that is, for one of time intervals corresponding to a plurality of divisions of a one-field period in a television signal mode, a fast transfer circuit for transferring pixel outputs of the solid-state imaging device at a high speed, field memories in which image signals sent from the fast transfer circuit are stored screen by screen, a selection output control circuit that reads the image signals stored screen by screen in the field memories by converting the time bases into the one for the one-field period in the television signal mode, and selectively outputs the plurality of read image signals depending on the state of a subject, and an adder for adding up the image signals selected by the selection output control circuit and providing an output image signal.

Solid-state imaging apparatus

The arrangement of a converging light device array wherein each converging light device increasing a quantity of incident light entering every one or more photoelectric conversion pixel is arranged in front of a photoelectric conversion surface of a solid state imaging device photoelectrically converting an optical image based on an objective optical system substantially ensures that an aperture area of the photoelectric conversion pixel enlarges and the sensitivity improves.

Electronic endoscope apparatus having micro array on photoelectric

A video processor which forms an endoscope apparatus is capable of selecting an image signal of a plurality of modes outputted from a signal processing circuit which performs signal processing with respect to an image pickup element of an endoscope, and image signals of a plurality of modes outputted from peripheral devices such as a VTR and the like, by a changing-over switch to output the image signals of the plurality of modes from a plurality of signal output ends. The plurality of output ends are connected to a plurality of input ends of an image display apparatus for performing image display. The image display apparatus is provided with a plurality of signal processing systems corresponding to the image signal of the mode inputted from the respective input ends, and is capable of selecting a single signal processing system by a changing-over switch to output the single signal processing system to a CRT. By operation of a changing-over operating switch on the side of the video processor, switching of the changing-over switch within the video processor is performed, and switching of the changing-over switch within the image display apparatus is also performed in interlocking relation thereto.

Endoscope system which changes over switches in interlocking relation to

An endoscope having at the tip of its inserting section a detecting device for detecting physical or chemical changes allows transmission of signals from the detecting device without requiring a dedicated signal line for this detecting device. For example, an electronic endoscope apparatus of the type which has an inserting section extending from an operating section, includes: a detecting device for detecting physical and chemical changes, such as a humidity sensor or a gas sensor, provided at a tip of the inserting section; a notifying device for notifying of the detection results of the detecting device by, for example, displaying them through a monitor; an image-sensing device, such as a CCD, for forming an image signal having a blanking period; and a signal line. A switching device transmits the signals from the detecting means time-sequentially with and during the blanking period of the signals from the image sensing means. With this construction, an increase in the diameter of the endoscope inserting section can be avoided in spite of the provision of the detecting device.

Endoscope apparatus which time-sequentially transmits sensor signals

A plurality of probes having image pickup elements differing from each other in image pickup system from each other are used to display an image image-picked-up on a monitor, and a connector of the used image pickup probe is connected to an exclusive adaptor, whereby a drive adapted for the image pickup element is applied to subject the image pickup element to preprocess processing suited for an output signal outputted from the image pickup element. The adaptor is mounted on a signal processing apparatus body, whereby substantially common process processing is subjected to a signal after the preprocess processing by the signal processing apparatus body, to generate a standard image signal. Thus, the standard image signal is displayed on a monitor.

Image pickup system comprising signal processing device which uses

This invention is a solid state imaging device provided with an imaging chip having an imaging area and a package enclosing this imaging chip wherein, among a plurality of corners of the image area on the imaging chip, a plurality of corners of the imaging chip and a plurality of corners of the above mentioned package, at least one corner in each corresponding position is chamfered. The chamfered corner of the image area is a region not required to display pictures and does not reduce the displaying performance. In the electronic endoscope, the above mentioned solid state imaging device is arranged within the small area of the insertable section with the chamfered corner directed to the outside.

Solid state imaging device having a chambered imaging chip corner

An electronic endoscope system having an electronic endoscope inserted into a body cavity, a light source unit for successively supplying illumination lights into the electronic endoscope, a processor for converting an image pickup signal from the electronic endoscope into an image signal, and a monitor for displaying based on the image signal from the processor. The electronic endoscope is constituted of an inter-line reading type CCD for imaging an object and obtaining an image signal by photoelectric conversion, a drive circuit for driving this CCD, a pre-process circuit for converting the image pickup from the CCD into a video signal, and a pulse transformer for transmitting this video signal to the processor. The processor is constituted of an A/D converter circuit for converting the analog image signal transmitted through the pulse transformer into digital signals, R, G and B FIFO memories for freezing/frame position moving which store the digital signals converted by the A/D converter circuit, D/A converter circuits for D/A conversion of signals from the R, G, and B memories, and post-process circuits for forming video signals from analog signals supplied from the D/A converter circuits.

Electronic endoscope for producing a color image by extracting a

A solid state imaging apparatus which can be made small in the contour is formed of a solid state imaging device chip provided with pad electrodes formed near a photoelectrically converting part, an interal connecting substrate bent so that a plurality of surfaces not on the same plane as this solid state imaging device chip may be formed and face-bonded and connected with the pad electrodes of this solid state imaging device chip through bumping members and electronic parts fitted on this connecting substrate and functionally connected to the solid state imaging device chip.

Solid state imaging apparatus in which a solid state imaging device chip

An endoscope photometric apparatus includes a photometric apparatus for detecting the brightness of an image based on an image signal from an endoscope imaging apparatus. An extracting apparatus extracts, from the image signal from the imaging apparatus, a bright part in which the brightness level from the peripheral of the image is above a predetermined value and the spatial size of the bright part is below a predetermined value. A limiting device limits the input image signal into the photometric apparatus of the part, corresponding to the bright part, in the image signal by using the output of the extracting apparatus in order to reduce the influence of the bright part on the brightness of the entire image.

Endoscope photometric apparatus

A method and circuit reduces the influence of a bright image area in an endoscope image signal. From the endoscope image signal, a signal component of the bright image area of a level difference from the periphery above a predetermined value and a spatial size below a predetermined value are extracted. The part, corresponding to the bright image area in the image signal or a signal based on the image signal, is depressed using the signal component of the bright image area.

Method and circuit for reducing the influence of a bright image area in

The solid state imaging apparatus having a black level correcting circuit of this invention has an imaging device provided with a solid state imaging device and a signal processing device connected to this imaging device, processing the picture image signal obtained by the solid state imaging device and outputting a video signal. The signal processing device is provided with a gain controlling amplifier receiving the photoelectrically converted output of the solid state imaging device and variably gain-controlling it and a direct current-clamping circuit direct current-clamping the optical black part included in the output signal of the solid state imaging device and stabilizing the black level of the video signal.

Solid state imaging apparatus

An imaging apparatus comprising a solid state imaging device for imaging an object image, an electronic circuit connected operatively to the solid state imaging device and generating heat and a heat conducting member leading the heat generated from the electronic circuit in a direction different from the solid state imaging device side at a thermal conductivity higher than the thermal conductivity of the heat generated from the electronic circuit to the solid state imaging device side.

Imaging apparatus

An endoscope apparatus has a storage-time switching circuit for shortening the charge storage time of a solid state imaging device provided with a photoelectric conversion function, and the quantity of illuminating light to be projected an object is increased in association with the operation of this switching circuit. In this transient process of increasing the quantity of illuminating light, the level of video signals obtained by imaging is compared with a proper reference level. If the level of the video signals reaches the reference level, the video signals are stored in a storage circuit. Accordingly, it is possible to obtain a frozen picture which is scarcely blurred.

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Musashino, Japan

Kiyoshi Tsuji