JPH10165354A - Endoscopic image recording carrier - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To shorten the recording time and reproducing time and record and reproduce an image at high speed by providing a means for converting an analog image signal to a digital data, a storing memory means, and a means for converting the stored digital data to an analog data. SOLUTION: A taken image is image processed by a video processor 3, displayed on a TV monitor 5, and also transferred to a memory card 11 in the form of analog signal. The transferred analog image signal is converted into a digital data by an AD converter 19, and stored in a memory 20. In reading of the image, a CPU 22 in the memory card 11 reads the corresponding digital data on the basis of an instruction signal, and this digital data is converted into an analog image signal by a DA converter 21, outputted from a card drive 10, and displayed on the TV monitor 5 through a switcher 4. Thus, the analog image signal can be inputted and outputted by the single memory card 11.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an endoscope image recording carrier for recording and reproducing an endoscope image.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, electronic endoscopes in which a solid-state imaging device such as a CCD is provided in an observation optical system to output a video signal of an endoscope image and display the video signal on a monitor have been widely used. Since this type of electronic endoscope processes an endoscope image by an electric signal, it can be easily recorded on a disk-shaped medium such as a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk, or a card-shaped record carrier such as an optical card.

[0003] In particular, since optical cards are convenient to carry,
It has been studied to issue various types of medical information as well as to record endoscopic images to be delivered to patients and to use them for comprehensive diagnosis. An example in which an optical card is used for such a purpose is described in, for example, JP-A-6-149636. That is, the recording section of the optical card is divided into a basic information area and a medical record information area, and card attributes, patient attributes, and the like are recorded in the basic information area together with identification codes, and the medical record information area includes radiographs and the like. It records digital image information and other inspection data.

[0004]

According to the invention described in the above publication, image data is once taken into a personal computer as an information processing device, converted into digital data, and then transferred to an optical card by digital communication and recorded. Therefore, the time required for image recording becomes very long. For this reason, when applied to endoscopic diagnosis, the examination time becomes longer and the patient suffers. In a hospital, a conference by a plurality of doctors is held to reconfirm endoscopic image diagnosis. In other words, about 20 images acquired at the time of examination for each patient are collectively displayed for one week (several tens depending on the scale of the hospital), and a confirmation diagnosis is made by a consensus. In conventional conferences, images are read and displayed one by one from a large-capacity recording device such as a magnetic disk that stores images for one week, but data transfer from the recording device to the display device is also performed by digital communication. Therefore, the transfer time was long, and it took time to display and confirm many images.

An object of the present invention is to provide an endoscope image record carrier capable of recording and reproducing an image at a high speed by shortening a recording time and a reproducing time in a digital image file device.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a portable endoscope image recording carrier for digitally recording and reproducing an endoscope image, comprising: an A / D converter for converting an analog image signal into digital data; A memory device for storage and a DA converter for converting the digital data stored in the memory into analog data are provided.

The endoscope image record carrier of the present invention receives an analog image signal output from an endoscope video processor or the like, converts the analog image signal into digital data, and stores the digital data in a memory means. When reading an image, the digital data stored in the memory means is converted into analog data and output.

According to the present invention, since image data can be input to an image record carrier in the form of an analog signal, signals can be transferred in real time in endoscopy, and the time required for storage can be reduced. it can. Also, in a conference, the reading time can be reduced by transferring the image data as analog data, and since the image data stored in a portable record carrier is limited to that of the patient who carries the camera, the conventional method is used. The search time can be reduced as compared with the case where a desired image is read from a server having a large storage capacity.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 to 3 relate to a first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire endoscope system using an endoscope image recording carrier according to the present invention, and FIG. FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing an outer shape of an endoscope image recording carrier according to the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of the endoscope image recording carrier according to the present embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 1, an endoscope system in which the present invention is used will be described. A video scope 1 is inserted into a body cavity of a living body, and a solid-state imaging device 2 provided at a distal end thereof.
To image the subject in the body cavity. An imaging signal from the solid-state imaging device 2 is sent to a video processor 3, where signal processing such as white balance and edge enhancement is performed, and the signal is converted into a video signal of a standard television format and output. The video signal from the video processor 3 is displayed on the TV monitor 5 via the switcher 4.

The light source device 6 supplies the video scope 1 with continuous white light or light that is sequentially switched to RGB components as illumination light in accordance with the simultaneous imaging method and the frame sequential imaging method of the solid-state imaging device 2. . The supplied illumination light is transmitted to the distal end of the video scope 1 by a light guide fiber 7 built in the video scope 1, and illuminates the subject via an illumination optical system (not shown).

The analog video signal is further supplied to a personal computer 8. The video signal supplied to the personal computer 8 is input to the AD converter 9 and the card drive 10.

The card drive 10 has a memory card 11 for image recording, which will be described in detail later, inserted therein, records an input analog video signal on the memory card 11, and reads out the recorded image in the form of an analog signal. .

The AD converter 9 converts the input analog video signal into a digital signal and sends it to the CPU 12. The CPU 12 processes the sent digital signal into a form recordable on the memory card 9 and controls the operation of the personal computer 8 and communication with the outside. The digital interface 13 exchanges digital signals between the CPU 12, the card drive 10, and the LAN 14 laid in the hospital. The personal computer 8 has an insertion slot (not shown) for the memory card 9, and an input / output end of the card drive 10 on the memory card 11 side is provided in a pin header shape inside the insertion slot. ing.

The DA converter 15 is a memory card 11
Is read out via the CPU 12 and converted into an analog signal and output to the switcher 4.

The external shape of the memory card 11, which is one form of the endoscope image recording carrier of the present invention, is a somewhat thick card type as shown in FIG. 2, and incorporates an IC chip and a thin battery inside. doing. On one side of the memory card 11, there is provided a receptacle 16 that fits into a pin header of an insertion port provided in the personal computer 8. , Input and output of signals.

As shown in FIG. 3, the memory card 11
A digital interface 17 for exchanging digital image data from a digital interface 13 of the personal computer 8, a compression / expansion circuit 18 for compressing and expanding data of the image data, and converting an analog video signal output from the video processor 3 into digital data. A / D converter 19 for conversion and the compression / decompression circuit 1
8 and a memory 20 for recording digital image data from the AD converter 19, a DA converter 21 for converting the digital image data read from the memory 20 into an analog signal, and a CPU 22 for controlling the above circuit elements.

By providing an AD converter 19 and a DA converter 21 in addition to the conventional digital interface 17 and compression / expansion circuit 18 for recording and reproducing digital data, the memory card 11 alone can input and output analog image signals. It was made.

Next, the operation of the present embodiment will be described. Prior to the endoscope inspection, the memory card 11 is inserted into the card insertion slot of the personal computer 8. At the time of inspection, the video scope 1 is inserted into a body cavity to capture an image of a subject. The captured image is processed by the video processor 3 and displayed on the TV monitor 5. When a doctor presses an image recording instruction switch (not shown) of the video scope 1 during image recording, a video signal of a still image for recording is transmitted from the video processor 3 to the memory card 11.
Is transferred in the form of an analog signal. Memory card 1
1 is an A / D converter for converting the transferred analog video signal.
, And stores it in the memory 20. The memory card 11 is inserted into the personal computer 8 when reading an image. In the following, the same operation is performed for the reproduction of the image at the inspection site even at the time of the conference, so the latter will be described. First, the user operates the personal computer 8 to designate a desired patient or image. Personal computer 8
Sends an image instruction signal to the memory card 11 via the digital interface 13 based on the designation. The CPU 22 in the memory card 11 specifies the address in the memory 20 where the image is recorded based on the instruction signal, and reads out the corresponding digital data.
The read digital data is stored in the DA converter 2
The signal is converted into an analog video signal by 1, output from the card drive 10, and displayed on the TV monitor 5 via the switcher 4.

Next, the analog video signal sent to the personal computer 8 is data-compressed and
The procedure for recording and reproducing this is described below. The input analog video signal is converted into digital data by the AD converter 9, processed by the CPU 12 into a signal form suitable for recording on the memory card, and transferred to the memory card 11 via the digital interface 13. After reading the transferred digital data through the digital interface 17, the data is compressed by the compression / expansion circuit 18 and stored in the memory 20. At the time of reproducing a data-compressed image, on the contrary, the compressed signal from the memory 20 is expanded by the compression / expansion circuit 18 and then sent to the CPU 12 via the digital interfaces 17 and 13. After a predetermined process is performed by the CPU 12, the signal is converted into an analog video signal by the DA converter 21 and sent to the TV monitor 5 via the switcher 4 to display an image.

As described above, since the memory card itself incorporates an AD converter and a DA converter and can exchange data with analog signals, high-speed data input / output is possible. In addition, since analog-to-digital conversion can be performed in the memory card, when this path is used, noise is reduced by eliminating the need for a digital signal interface and by not exchanging high-speed digital signals. It is also advantageous on EMC. Further, since the image data is recorded on a portable memory card, it is easy to carry and the security problem can be solved.

Referring to FIG. 4, a modification of this embodiment will be described. The memory card 23 has the same digital interface 17 and AD converter 1 as those described above.
9, a DA converter 21 and a memory 20.
Each of the compression / decompression circuits 24 has two input / output ports, and is configured to be switched under the control of the CPU 22. One input port is connected to the digital interface 17 and the other input port is A
It is connected to a D converter 19. One output port of the compression / expansion circuit 24 is a digital interface 1
7, and the other output port is connected to the DA converter 21.

An analog video signal from the video processor 3 is supplied to an AD converter 1 provided in a memory card 23.
The data is converted into digital data by the data compression circuit 9, and further compressed by the compression / expansion circuit 24 and recorded in the memory 20. At the time of reproduction, the data read from the memory 20 is expanded by the compression / expansion circuit 24, converted to an analog video signal like the DA converter 21, and output. Other operations are the same as those shown in FIG.

According to this modification, digital data obtained by converting an analog video signal input to a memory card can be compressed and expanded, so that a large amount of data can be recorded in a memory. Further, since the amount of data read from the memory is reduced, higher-speed image reproduction can be performed.

The configuration of the present invention described above can be summarized as follows. (1) In a portable endoscope image recording carrier for digitally recording and reproducing an endoscope image, AD conversion means for converting an analog image signal into digital data, memory means for storing digital data, and this memory means And a DA converter for converting the digital data stored in the digital camera into analog data. (2) The endoscopic image record carrier according to (1), further comprising a control unit for controlling the AD conversion unit, the DA conversion unit, and the memory unit. (3) The endoscopic image record carrier according to (1), further comprising compression / expansion means for compressing / expanding digital data input to the memory means and output from the memory means.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, when an image is recorded and reproduced with digital data with little deterioration, the data is transferred in an analog manner, so that high-speed writing,
Reading is possible. Therefore, the recording time during the examination can be shortened, and the pain of the patient can be reduced and the examination time can be shortened. Also, at the time of image diagnosis, it is possible to search and confirm nearly 20 image data recorded per patient at high speed, so that the conference time can be shortened. In other words, the present invention has the effect of instantaneously reproducing at a speed similar to that of a moving image, whereas search and reproduction of one screen conventionally took several seconds.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an entire endoscope system using an endoscope image recording carrier according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an outer shape of the endoscope image recording carrier according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of the endoscope image recording carrier according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of an endoscope image recording carrier according to a modification of the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11 Memory Card 19 AD Converter 20 Memory 21 DA Converter 23 Memory Card

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Shinichiro Hattori 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Inside Olympus Optical Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Keiichi Hiyama 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Olympus Optical Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Masahide Kanno 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A portable endoscope image recording carrier for digitally recording and reproducing an endoscope image, an A / D converter for converting an analog image signal into digital data, a memory for storing digital data, DA for converting the digital data stored in the memory means into analog data
An endoscope image recording carrier provided with a conversion means.