System providing 3 identical optical paths and adapted for a microscope

Abstract

An optical system or apparatus whereby 3 identical optical trains or paths of light providing steropsis are obtained for surgery and other uses, and by which four (4) viewing stations with balanced light are achieved. Documentation devices and observers see the target or object area as viewed at these stations. The apparatus comprises a housing having a chamber divided into two communicable cavities at an obtuse angle to one another, with four viewing stations mounted on the housing having access to the chamber and cavities in which a network of prisms is located to provide redirection of light in a balanced manner to all four viewing stations. Light is introduced through an opening or a set of three ports on the base of the housing, and is channelled to the port stations by the network of prisms. One of the three ports is common to a first port at two of the port stations each of which comprises a pair of ports, these pairs of ports being on different planes to one another, and at which steropsis is achieved. Each of the remaining two port stations, at which monocular vision is obtained, comprises a single port geometrically oriented correspondingly to second ports in such pairs of ports and to the remaining two ports of the set of three ports. The set of three ports is aligned with a microscope body containing a turret of lenses or zoom pods by which magnification for viewing occurs in the system. The network of prisms mounted in the chamber and its two cavities provides balancing of the light from the three identical optical trains or paths through all four viewing stations.