JP5247050B2 - Ophthalmic imaging equipment - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus such as a fundus camera for photographing a fundus portion such as a retina, which is used in an ophthalmic clinic or a group medical examination, for example.

  For example, a fundus camera is known as an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus.

  In recent years, with the widespread use of digital cameras, commonly used digital cameras have come to be used for fundus cameras. This is because a digital image obtained by fundus photography using a digital camera can be sufficiently diagnosed as compared with a case where a conventional 35 mm film or polaroid is used. In particular, in addition to the immediacy and economics of digital cameras, digital technologies such as high-resolution sensors have made it possible to obtain image quality equivalent to or better than 35mm film and Polaroid. There are some points.

One of the major features of digital images is that electronic operations such as enlargement / reduction of images can be easily performed by operating on a monitor. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses electronically scaling a fundus image as a digital image.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-028189

  As described above, in recent years, with an increase in resolution and sensitivity of an image sensor, a fundus camera specialized for a digital magnification mechanism has been developed, eliminating the optical magnification mechanism that tends to be expensive. However, in the case of a fundus camera not equipped with a monitor for displaying a fundus image, it is necessary to connect to a device having a display function such as a personal computer in order to display the photographed fundus image. In order to utilize the digital scaling function of the fundus image in the fundus camera system connected to the personal computer as described above, “to transfer the photographed fundus image to the personal computer and digitally convert the fundus image on the personal computer. A method of “doubling” is considered. Furthermore, a method of “transferring a fundus image that has been digitally scaled in the fundus camera to a personal computer” is also conceivable.

  In the fundus camera having the optical zoom mechanism, the photographer can check the result of optical zooming performed by the operation on the fundus camera on the monitor without leaving the fundus camera. For this reason, the operation of performing the digital zooming operation on the personal computer after the photographing has caused the photographer to deviate from the conventional photographing routine, and has caused a load at the time of photographing.

  In addition, as the resolution of digital images is increased, the capacity of images handled by ophthalmic apparatuses is increasing. For this reason, in order to maintain the conventional shooting routine, enlarging or cropping a digital image in the fundus camera increases the workload of the fundus camera body and requires a high-performance CPU or memory, which is expensive. It is conceivable that a device is required.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus that can realize a digital magnification function with an inexpensive system without impairing the operability of a conventional fundus camera having an optical magnification mechanism. .

In order to solve the above problems, an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus that electronically changes a display magnification of a fundus image,
A photographing means for photographing a subject's eye eye bottom,
Means for sending the image data of the photographed ocular bottom by said photographing means to the external device,
The imaging means includes resolution control means for controlling the resolution of the image sensor in accordance with the display magnification information .

Ophthalmic photographing apparatus according to the present invention, it is possible to realize the same operability and the fundus camera having an optical science zooming mechanism. Further, since digital zooming is performed by an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer connected to the outside, an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus having a digital zooming mechanism can be provided with an inexpensive system.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

(First embodiment)
A first embodiment will be described in detail with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a fundus camera that is an ophthalmologic photographing apparatus according to the first embodiment. In FIG. 1, on the optical path from the observation light source 1 to the objective lens 2, a condenser lens 3, a photographing light source 4 such as a strobe, a mirror 5, a diaphragm 10 having a ring-shaped opening, a relay lens 6, and a perforated mirror. 7 are arranged sequentially. These constitute a fundus illumination optical system that illuminates the fundus Er from the pupil Ep of the eye E to be examined.

  On the optical path in the transmission direction of the perforated mirror 7, a focusing lens 8, a photographing lens 9, and a flip-up mirror 11 that can be flipped up during photographing are arranged. Reflected light (fundus image) reflected from the fundus Er is guided to the examiner's eye E 'through the mirror 12 and the lens 13 during observation. At the time of photographing, the flip-up mirror 11 is flipped up as indicated by the dotted line, and the illumination light emitted from the photographing light source 4 is guided to the image sensor 14 inside the camera body 30. The fundus camera of the present embodiment has such an optical housing.

  The camera body 30 that can be attached to and detached from the fundus camera shown in FIG. 1 can attach a plurality of types represented by, for example, a single-lens reflex digital camera. In addition, the image data of the fundus image captured by the image sensor 14 is transferred to an external information processing apparatus personal computer by the image transfer unit 32 of the camera body 30.

  The system control unit 22 controls the fundus camera. For example, at the time of shooting, the shooting control unit 22a in the system control unit performs synchronization processing with the camera control unit 31 inside the camera body 30 at the time of shooting, and controls the light emission of the shooting light source 4 and the flip-up control of the flip-up mirror 11. Etc. Control related to photographing is performed.

  The most characteristic configuration in the first embodiment is a magnification setting unit 20 for allowing the examiner to set the display magnification of the fundus image and a magnification transfer unit 21 connected thereto. The magnification setting information input from the magnification setting unit 20 is transferred to an external information processing apparatus personal computer via the system control unit 22 and the magnification transfer unit 21.

  Note that the transfer of magnification setting information is controlled completely independently of the shooting operation by the system control unit 22 and the shooting control unit 22a. Therefore, the image data of the fundus image from the image transfer unit 32 in the camera body 30 has a feature that it is “not affected at all by the presence / absence of input from the magnification setting unit 20”.

  FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram according to the first embodiment.

  The fundus camera A is the fundus camera shown in FIG. 1 and has a configuration in which a single-lens reflex digital camera (camera body 30) is exemplarily mounted on the main body. The fundus camera A has a photographing switch 42 that is operated at the timing of photographing the subject's eye, and an operation panel 43 that can set the photographing light amount of the fundus camera and the photographing light amount.

  The image transfer cable 44 transfers image data from the image transfer unit 32 of the fundus camera A to the personal computer 46 that is an information processing apparatus. The magnification setting information transfer cable 45 transfers magnification setting information from the magnification transfer unit 21 of the fundus camera A to the personal computer 46.

  On the other hand, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 executes an electronic enlargement process on the image data from the image transfer unit 32 based on the magnification setting information from the magnification transfer unit 21 according to a program stored in the computer-readable storage medium. . The enlarged fundus image that is the processing result is displayed on the monitor 47.

  Here, the image transfer cable 44 and the magnification transfer cable 45 are exemplarily illustrated as individual cables. However, by relaying the output of the image transfer unit 32 with the fundus camera A, the image data and the magnification setting information are displayed. Two data can be transferred by one cable.

  As the personal computer 46, a notebook personal computer, a tablet personal computer, or the like with an integrated monitor 47 can be used. In addition, the present invention can be implemented even with a configuration of a unit capable of enlarging or cutting a fundus image by magnification setting information and a general television monitor.

  The characteristic processing of the first embodiment performed by the configuration shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  In the fundus camera A shown in the first embodiment, the examiner first fixes the face of the examiner to a fixed base such as a chin rest, and then operates the stage unit on which the optical system shown in FIG. Align to. In that case, the observation light quantity knob on the operation panel 43 is operated to adjust the light source 1 for observation and prepare for photographing.

  In step S <b> 1, the system control unit 22 detects that the magnification setting unit 20 has set whether to perform an equal magnification process or an enlargement process on the image data of the fundus image, according to a user operation. Here, in the first embodiment, description will be made assuming that the changeover of magnification is two types, that is, the same magnification process and the two times process.

  The fundus camera A according to the first embodiment includes “× 1” and “× 2” changeover switches on the operation panel 43 as the magnification setting unit 20. The examiner can set the magnification for the fundus camera A by pressing the “× 1” switch in the case of the same magnification processing and the “× 2” switch in the case of the double processing.

  In step 2, the magnification transfer unit 21 transfers magnification setting information to the personal computer 46. For example, when the “× 1” switch is pressed, the magnification transfer unit 21 transmits to the personal computer 46 a command for directly displaying the fundus image on the monitor 47 based on the transferred image data. When the “× 2” switch is pressed, the magnification transfer unit 21 transmits the magnification transfer information of “2 times” to the personal computer 46. Based on this information, the personal computer 46 electronically enlarges the transferred image data to double the vertical and horizontal sizes and “same size” as the original size. Performs scaling processing to cut off surrounding images. The “same size” here refers to the apparent size displayed on the screen of the monitor 47, and the file size and information amount are about 1/4 of the transferred original image data. Become.

  When all the shooting preparations are completed, the examiner operates the shooting switch 42 in FIG. 2 to shoot a still image by the image pickup device 14 inside the camera body 30.

  In step S <b> 3, when the system control unit 22 detects an operation of the shooting switch 42, the system control unit 22 outputs a shooting command to the camera control unit 31 in the camera body 30. Then, the system control unit 22 determines the state of the shutter synchronization signal in the camera body 30 and performs overall system control such as light emission control of the imaging light source 4 and control of the flip-up mirror 11. Step S4 ends when a still image of the fundus image has been captured by the image sensor 14 without any problem. Thereafter, in step S <b> 5, the image data of the fundus image is transferred to the external personal computer 46 by the image transfer unit 32 in the camera body 30.

  In step S <b> 6, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 associates the magnification setting information transferred by the magnification transfer unit 21 with the image data transferred by the image transfer unit 32. In this association processing, for example, items having similar transfer times are associated with each other. The image data is subjected to a scaling process corresponding to the transferred magnification setting information, and then a fundus image corresponding to the image data subjected to the scaling process is displayed on the screen of the monitor 47.

  In step S7, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 determines the magnification setting information transferred from the magnification transfer unit 20 in step S7. Here, the fundus image (1) in FIG. 4 corresponds to the image data transferred by the image transfer unit 32. If the magnification setting information is determined to be equal magnification, the process proceeds to step S8, and the processing unit of the personal computer 46 monitors the fundus image corresponding to the transferred image data as shown in the fundus image (2) of FIG. Is displayed at the same magnification.

  On the other hand, if the magnification setting information is determined to be double, the process proceeds to step S9. The processing unit of the personal computer 46 executes electronic enlargement processing on the transferred data in accordance with the magnification setting information. Then, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 cuts unnecessary image data in step S10. In step 8, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 displays a fundus image corresponding to the processed image data on the screen of the monitor 47, as in the fundus image (3) in FIG. 4. In step S11, a series of photographing routines is terminated.

  Needless to say, image data corresponding to the displayed fundus image can be stored in the personal computer 46 and the external storage device. In addition, when saving a file after changing the display size, it is possible to save the original image data as it is without cutting out the original image data.

  As described in the flowchart above, in the present embodiment, the image data transferred from the image transfer unit 32 and the magnification setting information transferred from the magnification setting unit 20 are independently transferred to the personal computer 46. Then, it is treated as related information for the first time in the personal computer 46. Therefore, a load on the fundus camera A does not occur due to electronic enlargement processing on the image data.

  In the first embodiment, for ease of explanation, the description has been given with two types of digital zooming, equal magnification and double angle, and the enlargement center position as the center of the fundus image. It goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to these forms, and various modifications and changes can be made within the scope of the invention. The fundus images (4) and (6) in FIG. 5 are fundus images corresponding to the image data transferred from the fundus camera A to the personal computer 46, respectively. Also, fundus images (5) and (7) are images generated from the fundus images (4) and (5) processed by the personal computer 46. The fundus images (4) and (5) are processing examples when the enlargement center and the fundus image center are different, and the fundus images (6) and (7) transfer information on the start coordinates and end coordinates of the enlargement image. This is an example in which the fundus image is cut out in a rectangular shape. In addition to the switch input on the operation panel, the magnification setting unit 20 may be a magnification variable volume that can set a digital magnification magnification in an analog manner.

(Second Embodiment)
Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 6 shows a characteristic system configuration in the second embodiment. The characteristic configuration of the second embodiment is that the camera body 30 has an image sensor resolution control unit 33. The image sensor resolution control unit 33 can set the resolution of the image of the image sensor 14 by external control. Others are the same as those in the first embodiment, and thus the description thereof is omitted.

  The image sensor resolution control unit 33 can be controlled in accordance with instructions from the personal computer 46 and the system control unit 22. In the second embodiment, it is assumed that the external personal computer 46 is connected.

  The processing of the second embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In FIG. 7, description of steps having the same reference numerals as those shown in FIG. 3 is omitted because similar processing is executed.

In step S12, the processing unit of the personal computer 46 outputs a resolution setting command for the image sensor 14 to the image sensor resolution control unit 33 based on the magnification setting information transmitted from the fundus camera A in step S2. When the input value from the magnification setting unit 20 specifies an enlargement magnification of “× α (α ≧ 1) times, the image sensor resolution control unit 33 sets the resolution to“ the number of pixels at the same magnification × α ² ”. . Specifically, when the resolution of the image sensor 14 is 1 million pixels when the same magnification is designated by “× 1”, the resolution when the double magnification is designated by “× 2” is “100”. It will be set to 4 million pixels by “10,000 pixels × 2 ² ”. The difference from the first embodiment in step S5 is that the number of pixels (resolution) of the image data transferred from the image transfer unit 32 is different when a magnification setting equal to or greater than 1 is input.

  Next, image processing of the personal computer 46 that has received the magnification setting information and the fundus image information will be described. When the magnification setting information is an equal magnification instruction, it is the same as in the first embodiment. On the other hand, if the magnification setting information is double, the process proceeds to step S10 ', where unnecessary image data is cut out as a scaling process, and a fundus image based on the magnification setting is displayed on the display screen of the monitor 47 in step S11.

Here, when the number of pixels of the image data corresponding to the fundus image (8) to the fundus image (11) is calculated according to the specific example described above,
Fundus image (8): 1 million pixel fundus image (9): 1 million pixel fundus image (10): 4 million pixel fundus image (11): 1 million pixels (1/4 information amount of fundus image (10))
Thus, it can be seen that the number of pixels of the image data corresponding to the fundus image (9) and the fundus image (11) used for actual fundus diagnosis is equal.

  As described above, in the second embodiment, the resolution of the image sensor 14 can be changed by the image sensor resolution control unit 33 with respect to the first embodiment. This provides the fundus image with the same resolution as that at the time of the same magnification shooting even when the fundus image is magnified by making the resolution of the image sensor 14 the same as the magnification set by the magnification setting unit 20. It becomes possible to do. That is, the problem that the pixel density of the image becomes rough due to digital zooming does not occur.

It is a block diagram of the fundus camera in the first embodiment. 1 is a system configuration diagram of a fundus camera and a personal computer connected thereto in a first embodiment. FIG. It is a processing flowchart figure of the system in a 1st embodiment. 6 is a diagram for explaining fundus image enlargement processing in the first embodiment; FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining fundus image enlargement processing in the first embodiment; FIG. It is a block diagram of the fundus camera in the second embodiment. It is a process flowchart figure of the system in 2nd Embodiment. FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining fundus image enlargement processing in the second embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

14 Image sensor 20 Magnification setting unit 21 Magnification transfer unit 30 Camera body 46 Personal computer 47 Monitor

Claims (1)

An ophthalmologic photographing apparatus that electronically changes a display magnification of a fundus image,
Photographing means for photographing the fundus of the eye to be examined;
Means for transmitting image data of the fundus imaged by the imaging means to an external device;
The imaging means includes a resolution control means for controlling the resolution of the image sensor in response to the display magnification information;
An ophthalmologic photographing apparatus comprising:

Images