JPS6355512A - Image pickup device for minute material - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To change the enlarging power without changing an optical element to observe a minute living body in accordance with its properties by moving an enlarging optical element incorporated in an immersed part and a photodetector, which transmits the enlarged optical image of the expanding optical element to the outside, in the direction of the optical axis to change their relative positions by an external control mechanism. CONSTITUTION:An objective lens 21 moved forward and backward by a driver 31 is set on the side of a transmission window 28 to obtain the enlarged optical image of a suspension in a slit 29. This enlarged optical image is transmitted out of an image pickup body 3 by an image fiber 22, which is provided at the rear of the objective lens 21 and can be moved forward and backward by a driver 32, and passes an eyepiece lens 4 and is received by an ITV camera 5, and the image is converted to an electric signal and is projected on a monitor TV 6. Position adjusters 9 and 10 control extents of driving of drivers 31 and 32 in accordance with deviations of new input signals from current position signals, and the enlarging power is arbitrarily changed by this operation without interchanging the objective lens.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an apparatus for imaging microorganisms in a suspension in a bioprocess, and in particular, to an apparatus for imaging microorganisms in a suspension in a bioprocess. The present invention relates to a suitable microorganism imaging device.

[Conventional technology]

Organisms in bioprocesses exhibit changes in response to their environment, and have useful information for determining the current state of the process. Until now, this determination has relied on batchwise microscopy, but recently, A method in which the lens barrel of a microscope is connected to an industrial television camera and the sample liquid is continuously passed through the microscope section (% formula % ~ 428), and an underwater camera method in which it is stored in a waterproof box (
Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. 60-108394) proposes an imaging device that performs online imaging.

A conventional online imaging device has a system in which an objective lens and an eyepiece are fixed to both ends of a microscope barrel, and a television camera is further fixed to the eyepiece side. For this reason, the magnification factor was fixed by the specifications of the lens system used.

By the way, bioprocesses include pure culture systems that utilize one type of living organism and mixed culture systems that use several types of living organisms. In a pure culture system, bacteria of different sizes and shapes grow, and even in a mixed culture system, each organism has different properties, and in order to uniformly observe these characteristics, it is necessary to change the magnification without changing the optical element. . In particular, in processes where the contamination and proliferation of germs is averse, it is necessary to change the magnification while the device is installed. According to this conventional example, in order to change the magnification, it was necessary to temporarily disassemble the imaging device and replace the lens system.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

The above-mentioned conventional technology has a problem in that the appearance phase and shape of microorganisms change due to one reaction state or an unforeseen accident, and it cannot be easily dealt with when it is desired to change the magnification.

An object of the present invention is to provide an imaging device that can change the magnification in response to the properties of microorganisms in an immersed state and without changing the component equipment.

[Means for solving problems]

The above purpose is to enable the magnifying optical element built into the immersion section and the light receiving element that transmits the magnified optical image of the magnifying optical element to the outside to be movable in the optical axis direction, and to change the relative positions of the two using an external adjustment mechanism. This is achieved by

[Operation] The magnifying optical element and the magnifying light image receiving element are operated in opposite directions with respect to the optical axis direction, and furthermore, the distance between them, that is, the relative distance, and the distance between the subject and the magnifying optical element can be adjusted externally. A mechanism maintains it at a predetermined value. Furthermore, the amount of light irradiated onto the subject is adjusted in accordance with the relative distance. Through such operations, an image with desired magnification and contrast can be obtained using the same optical element without replacing the optical element.

〔Example〕

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

An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG. 1. An imaging section main body 3 inserted from the outside of the reactor 1 into a suspension 2 containing microorganisms, algae, or animal and plant cells has a portion that comes into contact with the suspension 2. It has a closed structure, and a part thereof has a slit 29 through which the suspension 2 can freely enter and exit.

A transmission window 28, 28' made of glass or the like is provided on the side of the imaging unit main body 3 of the slit 29 to allow light to pass through. The light is introduced from the light source generator N12 into the imaging unit main body 3 through an optical fiber 23, and after condensing the light beam with a condenser lens 24, it is guided to a transmission window 28' via a prism 25, and then passed through a slit 29.
The suspension 2 inside is irradiated. The transmission window 28' is fixed to the movable wall 26 and has the function of changing the thickness of the suspension in the light irradiation area of the slit 29. The movable wall 26 is driven, for example, by introducing and extracting pressure gas into and out of the entire imaging section main body 3 or a partial region thereof via the conduction pipe 27.

With such an imaging unit configuration, the driver 31 is placed on the transmission window 28 side.
An objective lens 21 that can be moved in the front and back direction is installed,
An enlarged optical image of the suspension inside the slit 29 is obtained. This enlarged light image is transmitted to the outside of the imaging section main body 3 by an image fiber 22 installed behind the objective lens 21 and movable in the front and back direction by a driver 32, and is received by the ITV camera 5 via the eyepiece lens 4. be done. The image received by the ITV camera 5 is converted into an electrical signal and displayed on a monitor television 6.

The drivers 31 and 32 have the function of converting the rotational motion of a control motor or the like into reciprocating motion, and the drive source that provides one rotational motion may be provided outside the imaging unit main body 3.The drive command is issued as follows. 7, first, a desired magnification is input, and the positions of the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22 are calculated by the command circuit 8 according to the input magnification value. When performing positioning, the magnification and distance characteristics of the objective lens 21 to be used are input into the command circuit 8. In the case of the same lens, the magnification and distance characteristics have the relationship as shown in FIG. In the figure, Wd is a working distance, which means the distance from the suspension to be imaged to the objective lens 21, and L means the distance from the suspension to be imaged to the image point formed by the objective lens 21. The calculation of Wd and L can be obtained using the following equation.

Here, mll is the normal magnification of the objective lens 21, m is the set magnification, f is the fish collection distance of the objective lens 21, WdS and Ll
l is the working distance and object-to-image distance at magnification m. According to equations (1) and (2), in order to increase the magnification, it is sufficient to shorten the working distance Wd and lengthen the object-to-image distance 31L. This means that the end face of the image fiber 22 is placed at the position L. When installed, the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22 operate in opposite directions with respect to magnification changes.

Therefore, equations (1) and (2) and the specifications of the objective lens 21, such as Wd, m, L, and j, are input in advance to the command circuit 8. Wd determined by the command circuit 8 is input to the position adjuster 9, and L is input to the position adjuster 10. The position adjusters 9 and 10 calculate the deviation between the current position signal and the new input signal. The driving amount of the drivers 31 and 32 is controlled by using a positioning encoder or the like. By this operation, the magnification can be changed arbitrarily without changing the objective lens.

On the other hand, the magnification can be changed by changing the magnification of the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22! If the placement interval, that is, the distance changes, and the amount of light from the light source generator 12 is maintained constant, the image quality of the monitor television 6 will change.

FIG. 3 shows the relationship between distance, that is, magnification, and the amount of light generated, and the image quality can be roughly divided into three levels. The first stage is an area where the light intensity is weak and the contrast is not clear and the image quality is unclear.The second stage is an area where the contrast is good and a clear image quality can be obtained.The third stage is an area where the light intensity is too strong and the screen shines. This is the halation region of the state. Therefore, in order to obtain clear image quality, it is necessary to adjust the amount of light.
The adjustment method is to find the distance L' between the two from the output value of the command circuit 8 and input it to the light amount a cylinder 11. The light quantity adjuster 11 adjusts the light quantity of the light source generator 12 in accordance with the current interval L'o and the input value L'. According to the experimental example, the image quality shown in FIG. 3 can be achieved by maintaining the amount of light per unit area on the image fiber 22 that receives the enlarged light image, that is, the luminous intensity, within a specific range regardless of the distance. is obtained. Therefore, it is preferable that the light amount adjustment of the light source generator 12 be made to correspond to the square of the ratio of the distance intervals L'o and L'.

In the above embodiment, the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 2
1. For example, as shown in FIG. 4, the image fiber 22 that receives light is arbitrarily moved by a driver 32, and the other driver 31 is used to interlock the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22. It is also possible to use a method. The operating method in this case is to first position the image fiber 22 using the driver 32 at a distance L' between the objective lenses 21, and then adjust the working distance Wd.

According to this method, the set magnification does not need to be changed.

The raw point depth of the objective lens 21 can be finely adjusted.

Furthermore, although the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22 were only moved in the forward and backward directions, this does not mean that they may be moved in the lateral direction.

Both may be moved at the same time, or only the image fiber 22 may be moved. This is because the image received by the image fiber 22 is a part of the enlarged light image of the objective lens 21, and the image fiber 22 is This is because the image can be received even when moving.

Moving laterally allows a wider field of view to be monitored and a statistical sample to be obtained.

In the above example, the positioning was performed without considering the thickness of the transmission window glass on the objective lens 21 side, but if the glass thickness cannot be ignored, it is necessary to take the thickness into consideration in equations (1) and (2). . If the glass used has a thickness t and a refractive index η, the front fish collection distance of the objective lens 21 increases by t (Ku 1), so this value must be taken into account in equations (1) and (2).

Furthermore, the objective lens 21 and the image fiber 22! By having a structure that allows manual adjustment, fine adjustment of focal point alignment can be easily made.

Although this example has focused on liquids, it is not limited to liquids only; magnification adjustment and accompanying light intensity adjustment may be used, for example, for imaging or measurement of minute substances in the gas phase. .

In this embodiment, an image fiber is used as the image transmission means, but the present invention is not limited to this. For example, a TV camera that directly converts light into an electrical signal may be used.

In this case, in order to obtain a magnification similar to that of an image fiber, such a camera should have a narrow light-receiving area or a camera configuration in which a portion of the transmitted electrical signal is imaged.

This becomes possible by using highly integrated solid-state devices such as photoelectric devices. As a result, the number of optical elements can be reduced, and the effect of increasing resolution can be expected.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, the magnification can be changed without changing the optical element, and there is an advantage that observation can be performed in accordance with the properties of microorganisms.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a characteristic diagram of the positional relationship of optical elements accompanying magnification adjustment, Fig. 3 is a diagram of the relationship between magnification and luminous intensity showing the image quality state, and Fig. 4 FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of another embodiment of the present invention. 12...Light source generator.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A device for enlarging and imaging a microscopic substance, including an enlarging optical element, a light receiving element that receives and transmits an enlarged optical image of the enlarging optical element, a light source generating means for irradiating the enlarging optical element, and an enlarging optical element. A microscopic substance imaging device comprising a moving mechanism for adjusting the relative position of an optical element and the light receiving element, and controlling the amount of light from the light source generating means in accordance with the amount of adjustment of the moving mechanism.