The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 2014
Filed:
Mar. 13, 2013
Olympus Medical Systems Corp., Tokyo, JP;
Mitsujiro Konno, Tokyo, JP;
Olympus Medical Systems Corp., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
There is provided an endoscope apparatus capable of stably and precisely measuring a distance to an object by suppressing variations in measured values of the distance to the object depending on the presence or absence of pigment dispersion or the like and capable of enabling observations based on clear and high quality images. The endoscope apparatus includes an optical system that condenses light from an object and simultaneously forms two optical images having the same characteristics with difference only in focal point; an imaging element that captures the two optical images formed by the optical system and acquires two images; and a calculation unit that obtains distance information corresponding to a distance to the object based on a contrast ratio of the two images in a range in which the two images acquired by the imaging element have a common contrast.