JPH01221716A - Photographic device for endoscope - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To know the light emitting state of a light source in real time by projecting part of the light produced by the light source on a prescribed part of the photographing area of a solid-state image pickup element as a spot light and displaying the light quality corresponding to the spot light together with image pickup signals in a visible state. CONSTITUTION:The light emitting end 18b of an optical fiber 18a which is part of a light guide 18 is constituted so that it can face the peripheral area of the image pickup area of a solid-state image pickup element 30 through a condenser lens 42. Therefore, the light produced by a light source 6 for endoscope and led through the optical fiber 18a is always projected on the area other than the picture light projecting area obtained through an image guide 24 of the image pickup area 44 of the element 30 as a spot light 46. The light quality of the used light is detected on the basis of the spot light 46 corresponding to the partial light from the light source 6 obtained through the optical fiber bundle 18a. Therefore, the white-black balance of a monitoring picture can be adjusted appropriately in accordance with the light quality data.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an endoscope imaging device having a solid-state imaging device that captures image light inside a body cavity or the like.

2. Description of the Related Art A configuration in which a semiconductor solid-state image pickup device is applied in place of a conventional image pickup tube is already known for an endoscope imaging device that takes images of the inside of a living body's body cavity obtained during endoscopic diagnosis. In an endoscope imaging device that incorporates such a solid-state image sensor, the white balance is set to 3 in order to obtain an appropriate captured image.
1 adjustment mechanism (auto white mechanism) is provided. The auto-white mechanism is important in order to be able to always perform appropriate white balance adjustment of photographed images. That is, the light source device used when performing endoscopic diagnosis includes a collimation light source lamp such as a halogen lamp that generates collation light and a photographic light source lamp such as a xenon discharge tube that generates the imaging point. There is something I did. The color temperature of the illumination light source lamp installed in this type of endoscope light source device, such as a halogen lamp, varies greatly depending on its brightness, so the color tone of the monitor image captured by the solid-state image sensor is always There was a problem that they could not be obtained properly. Such an endoscope imaging device cannot know in real time the state of the light source, such as the brightness of the halogen lamp used as the illumination light. For this reason, it has been desired to know the light emission state of a halogen lamp in real time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned circumstances, and its purpose is to display a part of the collation light as a spot light together with a photographed image displayed on a monitor during endoscopic diagnosis.
An object of the present invention is to provide a photographing device for an endoscope that allows the state of light emission to be accurately known.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

In Figure 1, internal vision! 2 is connected to an endoscope light Fi, 6 via a universal cord 4.

The endoscope light source 6 includes a collation light source lamp 8 such as a halogen lamp that generates collation light, and a photography light source lamp 10 such as a sheep senon discharge tube that generates photography light.
These light source lamps 8, 10 are connected to a light emission control circuit 12 that includes a power supply line. The light source switching control circuit 14 is
By switching and driving the mirror unit 16, the illumination light or photographing light from the light source lamps 8, 10 is selectively guided to the light incident end of the light guide 18. The light guide 18, which is a bundle of optical fibers, extends within the universal cord 4 and further extends to the operating section 20 of the endoscope 2 and the bendable insertion section 22. Thereby, the light generated from the endoscope light source 6 is transmitted to the light guide 18 via the light guide 18 and emitted to the outside from the distal opening (not shown) of the endoscope insertion section 22. . on the other hand,
An image guide 24 similarly made of an optical fiber bundle is inserted into the endoscope 2, and optical images such as images inside a body cavity are transmitted to an endoscope eyepiece 26 via the image guide 24. A part of the optical fiber bundle 18a of the light guide 18 into which the universal cord 4 is inserted does not extend to the endoscope insertion section 12 but extends to the eyepiece section 26.

An endoscope photographing device 32 having a built-in solid-state image sensor 30 such as a CCD is detachably attached to the endoscope eyepiece section 26. The solid-state image sensor 30 is connected to an amplifier circuit 34 and a control circuit 36 that controls the operation of the solid-state image sensor. The amplifier circuit 34 is a camera control unit (hereinafter referred to as CC).
A separately configured monitor device 40 is connected to the monitor device 40 via the
It is connected to the.

On the other hand, the light guide 1 disposed inside the endoscope eyepiece 26
The light output ends 18b of some of the optical fibers 18a of 8 are configured to face the peripheral area of the imaging area of the solid-state image sensor 30 via the condenser lens 42. Therefore, the light generated from the endoscope light source 6 and guided through the optical fiber 18a is transmitted through the image guide 24 in the imaging area 44 of the solid-state image sensor 30, as shown in FIG. Spot light 46 is constantly irradiated onto a portion other than the irradiation area of the obtained image light. The image signal output from the solid-state image sensor 30 in this manner is amplified by the amplifier circuit 34 and then transmitted to the CCU 38. In response to the signal, the CCU 38 processes the actual image component obtained through the image guide 24 and displays it on a CRT (not shown) of the monitor device 40, and also displays the endoscope image obtained through the optical fiber bundle 18a. The light quality of the used light is detected based on the spot light 46 corresponding to the partial light from the use light R6, and the white balance of the monitor image is appropriately adjusted in accordance with the light quality data.

When performing endoscopic diagnosis using the embodiment of the endoscopic photographing apparatus of the present invention as described above, the endoscope insertion section 22 is inserted into a body cavity of a human body such as a patient. When illuminating the inside of the body cavity with collimation light to monitor images inside the body cavity, the mirror unit 16 in the endoscope light source 6 is located at the position shown by the solid line in FIG. The light from the light source lamp 8 is guided into the body cavity via the light guide 18, and a portion of the light is guided into the endoscope imaging device 32 attached to the eyepiece 26 via the optical fiber bundle 18a. A light spot 46 is irradiated onto a peripheral portion of the imaging region 44 of the solid-state imaging device 30 . Light guide 1 extending inside the insertion section 22
An image inside the body cavity obtained by the collimation light guided into the body cavity through the light image guide 24 and the solid-state image sensor 30
The image is formed approximately at the center of the imaging area 44. The imaging signal output from the solid-state imaging device 30 at this time is transmitted to the CCU 38 via the amplifier circuit 34 as described above. During the endoscopic diagnosis period, the image inside the body cavity obtained through the image guide 24 is displayed by the CCU 38 on a CRT (not shown) of the monitor device 40, and the CCU 3g constantly monitors the image based on the imaging signal component corresponding to the spot light 46. White balance and J adjustment are performed. The light quality of the light from the illumination light source lamp 8 such as a halogen lamp has an unstable property in that its color temperature changes significantly depending on the brightness. The color tone of the monitor image can be appropriately adjusted to compensate for the change. This allows doctors and other diagnosticians to always monitor images inside the body cavity with high-quality images that correspond to real image colors, allowing them to accurately distinguish even subtle color changes in tissues within the body cavity, thereby accurately identifying the affected area. Endoscopic diagnosis such as tissue diagnosis can be performed.

When a diseased tissue is discovered through the above-mentioned endoscopic diagnosis, and in particular when photographing an area within a body cavity that includes the diseased tissue, the light source switching circuit 14 in the endoscope light source device 6 switches the mirror unit 16 on. It is switched to the position shown by the broken line in FIG. Therefore, since the photographing light from the photographing light source lamp 10 such as a xenon discharge tube is incident on the light incident end of the light guide 18, the inside of the body cavity is irradiated with the photographing light.

At this time, a part of the photographing light is irradiated as spot light 46 to the imaging region of the solid-state image sensor 30 in the endoscope photographing device 32 via the optical fiber bundle 18a. Therefore, even during imaging, the CCU 38 performs appropriate color tone adjustment processing for the captured image based on the light quality data of the imaging light actually used for imaging, so that better quality intra-body cavity images can be captured each time. It can be done quickly.

As described above, according to the present invention, a part of the light generated from the light source for an endoscope is irradiated as a spot light onto a predetermined imaging area of a solid-state image sensor, and the image sensor is used together with an imaging signal to correspond to the spot light. Since the light quality is visually displayed on the monitor device, there is an effect that the light emitting state of the light source can be known in real time.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram schematically showing an endoscope apparatus including an embodiment of the endoscopic image capturing apparatus of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a solid-state image sensor of the endoscope image capturing apparatus shown in FIG. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an imaging area of FIG. 2... Endoscope, 6... Light source for endoscope, 8... Collation light source lamp, 10... Photographing light source lamp, 18...
・Light guide, 24... Image guide, 30...
・Solid-state imaging device, 32... Endoscope imaging device, 34.
... Amplification circuit, 38... Camera control unit (CCU), 40... Monitor device, 44... Imaging area, 46... Spot light. Applicant Representative: Patent Attorney Atsushi Tsuboi

Claims (1)

[Claims] an endoscope light source that illuminates the inside of a living body's body cavity, an image processing means that captures image light inside the body cavity, etc., and converts it into a video signal;
In an endoscope imaging device that includes an endoscope that is inserted into a body cavity, a solid-state imaging device captures the image light, and a part of the light generated from the endoscope light source is transmitted to the solid-state imaging device. a light irradiation means for irradiating a predetermined portion of the imaging area of the element as a spotlight; and a light irradiation means for converting the imaging signal output from the solid-state imaging device into a video signal and displaying the image signal, and for making the light quality corresponding to the spotlight visible. An endoscope imaging device characterized by comprising a monitor device for displaying images.