ENDOSCOPE SYSTEM AND LOW VISIBILITY DETERMINING METHOD
First Claim
1. An endoscope system comprising:
- an image pickup section, provided in an endoscope, which performs image pickup;
a determining section that determines whether or not a specific observation object exists inside an image pickup region of the image pickup section;
a recognizing section that determines whether or not the specific observation object can be recognized as an image from the picked-up image in the image pickup region picked up by the image pickup section;
a low visibility determination output section that determines, when the determining section determines that the specific observation object exists inside the image pickup region and the recognizing section cannot recognize the specific observation object as an image, that the image pickup section is in a low visibility condition and outputs a low visibility determination result; and
an obstacle estimation section that estimates an obstacle or a type of obstacle which causes the low visibility according to the low visibility determination result.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An endoscope system includes an image pickup section, provided in an endoscope, which performs image pickup, a determining section that determines whether a specific observation object exists inside an image pickup region of the image pickup section, a recognizing section that determines whether the specific observation object can be recognized as an image from the picked-up image in the image pickup region picked up by the image pickup section, a low visibility determination output section that determines, when the determining section determines that the specific observation object exists inside the image pickup region and the recognizing section cannot recognize the specific observation object as an image, that the image pickup section is in a low visibility condition and outputs a low visibility determination result, and an obstacle estimation section that estimates an obstacle or a type of obstacle which causes the low visibility according to the low visibility determination result.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. An endoscope system comprising:
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an image pickup section, provided in an endoscope, which performs image pickup; a determining section that determines whether or not a specific observation object exists inside an image pickup region of the image pickup section; a recognizing section that determines whether or not the specific observation object can be recognized as an image from the picked-up image in the image pickup region picked up by the image pickup section; a low visibility determination output section that determines, when the determining section determines that the specific observation object exists inside the image pickup region and the recognizing section cannot recognize the specific observation object as an image, that the image pickup section is in a low visibility condition and outputs a low visibility determination result; and an obstacle estimation section that estimates an obstacle or a type of obstacle which causes the low visibility according to the low visibility determination result. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A low visibility determining method comprising:
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a display step of displaying an image of a site to be observed in a body cavity picked up by an image pickup section as an endoscope image; a treatment instrument position acquiring step of a position determining section acquiring a position of a distal end portion of a treatment instrument for conducting a treatment of the site to be observed; a position determining step of the position determining section determining whether or not the distal end portion of the treatment instrument is located inside an image pickup region as a region of the picked-up image; a recognizing step of an image recognizing section conducting image recognition as to whether or not the distal end portion of the treatment instrument can be recognized as an image of an interior of the image pickup region through image processing on the picked-up image; a low visibility determination outputting step of a low visibility determining section determining low visibility when the distal end portion of the treatment instrument is determined in the position determining step to be inside the image pickup region and the recognition result in the recognizing step shows that the distal end side of the treatment instrument cannot be recognized as an image inside the image pickup region and outputting a low visibility determination result; and an obstacle estimating step of an obstacle estimation section estimating, when the low visibility determination result is outputted in the low visibility determination outputting step, an obstacle or a type of obstacle that causes the low visibility.
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Specification