Endoscopic television apparatus

• US 4,475,539 A
• Filed: 10/19/1981
• Issued: 10/09/1984
• Est. Priority Date: 10/28/1980
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Olympus Optical Corporation Limited (Olympus Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Olympus Optical Corporation Limited (Olympus Corporation)
• Inventors: Konomura, Yutaka
• Primary Examiner(s): Coven, Edward M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hindenburg, Max F.
• Application Number:
  US06/312,791
• Time in Patent Office: 1,086 Days
• Field of Search: 128/4, 128/5, 128/6-8, 354/62, 358/98, 358/22
• US Class Current: 600/109
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/042 characterised by a proximal camera, e.g. a CCD camera

Abstract

An optical filter member composed of a plurality of ND filters having different transmission factors and arranged circumferentially at regular intervals is disposed between a light source and a light guide of an endoscope. When the optical filter member is rotated, a light beam with periodically varying luminance is transmitted through the light guide to illuminate an object inside a body cavity. Images of the object corresponding to different luminances are converted severally into video signals by a television camera. A signal component within a given level range is extracted from each of these video signals by a limiter. The signal components of the video signals are composed into video data to be supplied to a display. The display indicates the video data as an image with proper contrast.

Claims

1. An endoscopic television apparatus comprising:

a light supply unit for periodically emitting light beams of different luminances;

an endoscope including a light guide for leading the light beams from said light supply unit to an object and an image guide for transmitting images of the object subjected to the light beams of different luminances;

a camera unit for converting the images transmitted by the image guide of said endoscope into video signals of different brightnesses corresponding to the different luminances;

means for extracting signal components within a given level range from each of the video signals from said camera unit;

synthesizing means for synthesizing the signal components extracted by said signal component extracting means to form video data; and

means for displaying the composite video signal from said synthesizing means as an image of said object.

2. An endoscopic television apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said light supply unit is composed of a light source emitting a light beam with a fixed luminance, and a plurality of ND filters with different transmission factors through which the light beam from said light source is transmitted with a fixed period.

3. An endoscopic television apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said light supply unit is composed of a light source emitting a light beam with a fixed luminance, an optical filter member formed of a plurality of ND filters having different transmission factors and arranged circumferentially at regular intervals and rotatably disposed between said light source and said light guide, and driving means for rotating said optical filter member at fixed a speed.

4. An endoscopic television apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said signal component extracting means is composed of a limiter to pass the signal components of the video signals from said camera unit within the given level range.

5. An endoscopic television apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said synthesizing means is composed of at least one memory for successively storing the signal components from said signal component extracting means, and means for reading out the signal components from said memory as video data.

6. An endoscopic television apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said synthesizing means is composed of first and second memories and switch means periodically switching between said first and second memories, so that a signal component is read out from one of said first and second memories while another signal component is being written in the other memory.