Electronic endoscope apparatus to which electronic endoscopes with different numbers of pixels can be connected

• US 6,943,821 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2002
• Issued: 09/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujinon Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fujinon Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Abe, Kazunori, Okada, Fujio
• Primary Examiner(s): VO, TUNG T
• Application Number:
  US10/101,345
• Publication Number:
  US 20020140807A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,273 Days
• Field of Search: H04/N00.7/18, 348 42- 61, 348 62- 92
• US Class Current: 348/65
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4007 based on interpolation, e.g. bilinear interpolation image demosaicing G06T3/4015; edge-driven or edge-based scaling G06T3/403
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/507 using conditional replenishment
• 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

Abstract

With a device that connects a processor device to electronic endoscopes having CCDs with different numbers of pixels, for example, 410, 270, or 190 thousand pixels mounted thereon, all the CCDs are driven at a frequency corresponding to 410 thousand pixels. Further, an information amount converting circuit enlarges an image obtained by the CCD with 270 or 190 thousand pixels in a horizontal direction and a vertical direction by using pixel interpolation. That is, data on a pixel to be interpolated is calculated by averaging pixels around this pixel, and enlarged binary data on this target pixel is obtained. A weighting factor is applied to this binary data, and the resultant data is added to the target pixel data. This process forms an image with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

Claims

1. An electronic endoscope apparatus comprising:

various kinds of electronic endoscopes having image pickup elements with different numbers of pixels mounted thereon;

a processor to which these electronic endoscopes are connected;

a signal processing circuit arranged in said processor device and which drives said image pickup elements with the different numbers of pixels at a frequency set on the basis of a reference pixel number and which executes video processing on the basis of the frequency; and

an information amount converting circuit arranged in said processor device and which operates if an electronic endoscope having an image pickup element with pixels the number of which is different from the reference pixel number is connected to the apparatus, to execute pixel interpolation comprising a process of extracting a characteristic value for peripheral pixel information to compensate for a lack of pixel information, thereby forming a video with a predetermined aspect ratio; and

wherein said information amount converting circuit is comprised;

an image enlarging circuit that enlarges an image obtained by the image pickup element by executing an interpolation process of averaging peripheral pixels;

a binarization circuit that forms a binarized image of the image obtained by the image pickup element;

a binary image enlarging circuit that enlarges the binary image using an interpolation process; and

an addition circuit that adds data obtained by applying a weighting factor to binary data output from the binary image enlarging circuit, to image data output from the image enlarging circuit.

2. The electronic endoscope 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 endoscope apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said information amount converting circuit sets said weighting factor applied to said binary data, depending on an average value for peripheral pixels.

4. The electronic endoscope apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said information amount converting circuit sets said weighting factor applied to said binary data, depending on an average value for peripheral pixels having a pixel value larger than a predetermined threshold.