Electronic endoscopic apparatus connectable with electronic endoscope having different number of pixels

• US 6,876,380 B2
• Filed: 03/18/2002
• Issued: 04/05/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujinon Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Photo Optical Co. Ltd (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Abe, Kazunori, Okada, Fujio
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Vu
• Application Number:
  US10/098,481
• Publication Number:
  US 20020140806A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,114 Days
• Field of Search: 348/65, 348/72, 348/75, 600/172
• US Class Current: 348/72
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 11/20 Conversion of the manner in which the individual colour picture signal components are combined, e.g. conversion of colour television standards
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/555 for picking-up images in sites, inaccessible due to their dimensions or hazardous conditions, e.g. endoscopes or borescopes
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/00 Circuitry of solid-state image sensors [SSIS]; Control thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/46 for receiving on more than one standard at will deflecting circuits of multi-standard receivers H04N3/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0105 using a storage device with different write and read speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/0135 involving interpolation processes interpolation-based image scaling G06T3/4007; interpolation for video coding H04N19/587, H04N19/59

Abstract

An electronic endoscopic apparatus having various sorts of electronic endoscopes mounting a CCD with a different number of pixels, for example, 410,000 pixels, 270,000 pixels or 190,000 pixels that are connectable to a processor. A CCD drive and signal processing circuit drives all the CCDs at a frequency set up for the CCD with 410,000 pixels, and an information quantity conversion circuit expands an image acquired by the CCD with 270,000 pixels or 190,000 pixels by pixel interpolation in a horizontal direction or a vertical direction to form an image with an aspect ratio of 4 to 3. Also, a video signal acquired in an NTSC system is converted into a video signal of a PAL system by using a television standard conversion circuit, thereby displaying an excellent PAL video without any bar noise.

Claims

1. An electronic endoscopic apparatus, comprising:

various sorts of electronic endoscopes mounting an image pickup element having a different number of pixels;

a processor to which said electronic endoscopes are connected;

a signal processing circuit, disposed in said processor, for driving said image pickup element having the different number of pixels at a frequency set up for a reference pixel number, and making a video processing based on said frequency; and

an information quantity conversion circuit, disposed in said processor, for supplementing insufficient pixel information, and forming a video with a predetermined aspect ratio, when an electronic endoscope having the image pickup element with other number of pixels than said reference pixel number is connected.

2. The electronic endoscopic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said processor comprises a determination circuit for determining the number of pixels for the image pickup element mounted on the electronic endoscope by communicating with the electronic endoscope when the power is turned on.

3. The electronic endoscopic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said signal processing circuit drives the image pickup element based on an NTSC system, and said electronic endoscopic apparatus further comprises a main memory for memorizing the video signal data acquired at a timing of the NTSC system in sequence, an auxiliary memory for memorizing the same video signal data stored in said main memory, and a conversion circuit for converting a video signal of the NTSC system into a video signal of the other television standard, in which the video signal data is read from said main memory at a timing of the other television standard, and for the data in a period for which the writing of the next data overtakes the reading of the data in said main memory, the writing of the data into said auxiliary memory is inhibited and the data is read from said auxiliary memory.

4. The electronic endoscopic apparatus according to claim 3, wherein said conversion circuit reads the video signal data memorized in said auxiliary memory to alternately provide the odd field data and the even field data output from the image pickup element.