Olympus Corporation

Olympus Medical Systems Corporation

Shunji Takei

Kenji Yamazaki

Nobuyuki Doguchi

Satoshi Takekoshi

Wataru Ono

Sakae Takehana

Makoto Igarashi

Katsuichi Imaizumi

Naoya Sugimoto

Kei Kubo

Yoshiro Okazaki

Yusuke Nomura

Kazutoshi Kumagai

Waturo Ono

A pericardial-cavity observing method including: a step of inserting an endoscope sheath and an endoscope into a space between the heart and the pericardium; a step of disposing a protruding portion closer to the pericardium than an optical member is so that an angle that is formed between a centerline that passes through a center of the protruding portion and a center of the optical member and a tangent of the pericardium that passes through a foot of a perpendicular line drawn, from the center of the optical member of the endoscope, to the pericardium sagging down from the protruding portion toward the heart becomes greater than an angle formed between the centerline and an external common tangent of the protruding portion and the optical member; and a step of observing the heart by means of the endoscope.

Pericardial-cavity observing method

An image processing system includes: a light source portion configured to emit illuminating light to be radiated to an object; a light receiving optical member for guiding return light from the object: a light detecting portion configured to receive the return light caused to be incident through the light receiving optical member to generate an electric signal, amplify the generated electric signal, convert the amplified electric signal to a digital signal and output the digital signal; an image processing portion configured to generate an image based on the digital signal outputted from the light detecting portion and perform gain adjustment for the generated image; and a parameter adjusting portion configured to adjust a predetermined parameter based on a variable range of an output value of the light source portion and a variable range of a gain value in the gain adjustment.

Image processing system and image processing apparatus

An endoscope system includes: an illumination unit configured to irradiate a visual field area with illumination light that produces return light from a specific substance; a sensor unit having a two-dimensional surface on which a plurality of pixels is arranged for receiving the return light from the visual field area and photoelectrically converting the return light to generate electrical signals; a reading unit configured to read out the electrical signals per a specified frame cycle; a reset pulse generation unit configured to generate reset pulses for releasing electric charges accumulated in the plurality of pixels; a reset pulse controller configured to adjust timing of generating the reset pulses such that a plurality of frame cycles is included in a period between generation of two consecutive reset pulses; and an illumination controller configured to cause the illumination unit to emit the illumination light in each of the plurality of frame cycles.

Endoscope system

An imaging apparatus includes: an excitation light emission unit that irradiates a subject with excitation light for exciting a fluorescent substance introduced into the subject; a normal light emission unit that irradiates the subject with normal light including a visible wavelength range different from the excitation light; an imaging unit that forms an optical image of the subject irradiated with the excitation light or normal light on an imaging surface to generate an image signal; a brightness signal generation unit that generates a brightness signal indicating brightness, based on the image signal generated by the imaging unit under irradiation with the normal light; and an amplification unit that sets an amplification factor of the image signal to be generated by the imaging unit under irradiation with the excitation light, based on an amplification factor of the image signal according to the brightness signal generated by the brightness signal generation unit.

Imaging apparatus for controlling fluorescence imaging in divided imaging surface

An endoscope apparatus includes an illuminating section capable of irradiating a subject with a light in a first wavelength band and light in a second wavelength band, an image processing section including a color filter configured by a plurality of filters, the image processing section generating, from two image pickup signals respectively generated in a first pixel and a second pixel that respectively receive light in a predetermined wavelength band and light in a wavelength band different from the predetermined wavelength band among return lights from the subject, first and second image signals, a control section that determines whether the two image pickup signals can be separated into the first and second image signals, and an illumination control section that performs irradiation in a time division manner or simultaneous irradiation according to a determination result whether the separation is possible or not.

Endoscope apparatus

An endoscope apparatus includes: an image pickup portion that, with respect to return light including a plurality of wavelength band components that is generated accompanying irradiation of illuminating light onto an object, receives the return light with a plurality of different spectral sensitivities and generates an image pickup signal for each of the spectral sensitivities; a correction portion that, based on a spectral distribution of the return light and spectral sensitivity characteristics of the image pickup portion, sets a correction coefficient so that spectral distributions for each of the plurality of wavelength band components included in the image pickup signals become a similar shape to each other; and a calculation portion that, based on the correction coefficient, performs a calculation that separates image pickup signals into each wavelength band component among the plurality of wavelength band components included in the return light.

An image pickup system of the present invention has a light emitting section that emits a first illuminating light and a second illuminating light to an object, an image pickup section that picks up an image of a first return light and an image of a second return light, and outputs the images as image pickup signals respectively, an image generating section that generates a first image and a second image respectively based on the image pickup signals, a differential value calculating section that calculates a first differential value corresponding to the first image and a second differential value corresponding to the second image respectively, a calculation section that performs calculation processing by using the first differential value and the second differential value, and a region discriminating section that discriminates between regions in the object by applying threshold processing to a calculation result of the calculation section.

Image pickup system and endoscope system

An image pickup system includes: an image sensor that performs a rolling-shutter image pickup operation; a generator; an adding section that adds image pickup signals from an image pickup signal in a predetermined frame to an image pickup signal in an Nth frame, with the predetermined frame being set as a first frame; a light source; a signal output section that outputs a signal representing either a timing of start of readout of a first line in the predetermined frame or a timing of completion of readout of a last line in a frame immediately before the predetermined frame; and a light source control section that starts light emission after an input of the signal and terminates light emission in a period after completion of readout of a first line in an N-1th frame until before a start of a first line in the Nth frame.

Image pickup system

An endoscope apparatus includes: a light source portion that irradiates an excitation light and a reference light alternately; an image pickup portion that picks up images of the fluorescence from the living tissue and the reflected light; a signal processing portion that generates image signals from picked up signals; an addition processing portion that generates, from image signals of fluorescence, addition processed signals of fluorescence in which pixels are added; a light quantity control portion that controls the quantity of light so as to maintain a predetermined light quantity ratio between the quantities of the excitation light and the reference light from the addition processed signals of fluorescence and image signals of the reflected light; and a superimposition processing portion that superimposes the addition processed signals and the image signals of the reflected light, with the predetermined light quantity ratio being maintained.

Endoscope apparatus and method for controlling fluorescence imaging apparatus

A medical instrument is provided with: an illumination section radiating excitation light for exciting a fluorescent substance given to a subject, to the subject; an image pickup section photoelectrically converting reflected light from the subject to which the excitation light is radiated, to pick up an image of the subject; a reading section holding pixel signals obtained by the photoelectrical conversion and capable of reading the pixel signals non-destructively while changing amplification factors of the held pixel signals by a predetermined unit of pixels; and an image processing section determining an arithmetic mean of the pixel signals read with different amplification factors by the reading section to generate an image. The medical instrument improves visibility of each fluorescent area without occurrence of position displacement even in the case where multiple fluorescent areas with a relatively large brightness/darkness difference exist within one screen.

Medical instrument

An image generating apparatus according to the present invention includes: a first light source unit that emits light in a first wavelength band to a subject; a second light source unit that emits light in a second wavelength band, which is a part of the first wavelength band, to the subject; an image pickup unit that picks up an image of the subject and outputs the image as an image pickup signal; a light cut filter unit that cuts light in the second wavelength band reflected from the subject; and a complementary processing unit that applies complementary processing to a component equivalent to the second wavelength band cut by the light cut filter unit in the image of the subject picked up by the image pickup unit in a state in which the subject is illuminated by the light in the first wavelength band.

Image generating apparatus

A medical image processing apparatus of the present invention is a medical image processing apparatus to which a plurality of color components corresponding to frame-sequentially picked-up images of an object are time-sequentially inputted while maintaining periodicity thereof, including a color component storage section that can store a first color component inputted to the medical image processing apparatus at one timing and a second color component, which is a component of the same wavelength band as that of the first color component inputted to the medical image processing apparatus at timing preceding the one timing by one cycle or more, and an image correction processing section that simultaneously reads the first color component and the second color component stored in the color component storage section and performs image correction processing.

Medical image processing apparatus and medical image pickup system

A fluorescent imaging device includes an irradiation section that irradiates an object to be examined with excitation light and reference light, an image pickup section that picks up a fluorescence image based on the excitation light and a reflected light image based on the reference light, a comparison section that compares relative intensity between the fluorescent image generated from the fluorescence image and the reflected light image generated from the reflected light image, and a selection section that selectively outputs one of the reflected light image and the fluorescent image based on the comparison result.

Fluorescent imaging device and fluorescent image acquiring method

A fluorescence observation apparatus according to the present invention includes a light source section that emits excitation light for exciting a first fluorescent substance and a second fluorescent substance, a fluorescence detection section that detects first fluorescent light emitted when the first fluorescent substance is excited and second fluorescent light emitted when the second fluorescent substance is excited, a correction value calculation section that calculates a correction value for canceling a color mixture between the first fluorescent light and the second fluorescent light based on feature values corresponding to characteristics of the first fluorescent substance and the second fluorescent substance, a detected image generation section that generates a first detected image corresponding to a detection result of the first fluorescent light and a second detected image corresponding to a detection result of the second fluorescent light, and an image correction section that corrects a luminance value of the first detected image to a luminance value corresponding to intensity of the first fluorescent light and corrects a luminance value of the second detected image to a luminance value corresponding to intensity of the second fluorescent light.

Growing community of inventors

Hachioji, Japan

Shunji Takei