Insertion support system for producing imaginary endoscopic image and supporting insertion of bronchoscope

• US 20060170765A1
• Filed: 03/31/2006
• Published: 08/03/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Akimoto, Shunya, Ohnishi, Junichi
• Granted Patent: US 7,659,912 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/45
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00009 of image signals during a use of endoscope
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/0005 combining images e.g. side-by-side, superimposed or tiled
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/267 for the respiratory tract, e.g. laryngoscopes, bronchoscopes

Abstract

In an insertion support system according to the present invention, on the basis of the rotation angle data of the VBS images stored in the memory, an image processing unit rotates and corrects the VBS image and the thumbnail VBS images to generate the insertion support screen.

Claims

1. An insertion support system comprising:

virtual image generating unit for generating three-dimensional images of a duct in a body cavity in a subject as successive virtual images in frame units, on the basis of image data of a three-dimensional region in the subject;

navigation image generating unit for generating a navigation image including an endoscope image sent by an endoscope configured to capture images of the duct in the body cavity in the subject, the virtual image, and a plurality of reduced size images of the virtual image at all branch points at which the duct in the body cavity in the subject diverges;

rotation information storing unit for storing image rotation information of the reduced size images; and

image rotation controlling unit for rotating the reduced size images generated by the navigation image generating unit, on the basis of the image rotation information.

2. The insertion support system according to claim 1,

wherein the rotation information storing unit stores the image rotation information in association with frame information of the virtual images.

3. The insertion support system according to claim 1, comprising rotation amount comparing unit for comparing the image rotation information with predetermined rotation angle data,

wherein the image rotation controlling unit controls rotation of the reduced size images on the basis of a result of the comparison made by the rotation amount comparing unit.