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Electronic endoscope with light-amount adjustment apparatus

  • US 6,980,227 B2
  • Filed: 10/01/2002
  • Issued: 12/27/2005
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2001
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. An electronic endoscope having a video-scope with an image sensor and a video-processor, said video-scope being one of a plurality of connectable video-scopes and being selectively connected to said video-processor, said electronic endoscope comprising:

  • a light source that emits light;

    an illuminating lens that is provided in a tip of said video-scope and that transmits the light to a subject;

    an objective lens that is provided in the tip of said video-scope and that forms a subject image on said image sensor;

    an image processor that generates luminance signals from image signals read from said image sensor;

    a tip characteristic detector that detects tip characteristics corresponding to a type of said video-scope, the tip characteristics including at least an arrangement relationship between said objective lens and said illuminating lens;

    a metering setter that defines a plurality of division areas by dividing the total area of the subject image into a plurality of areas and that sets a plurality of weighted coefficients corresponding to the plurality of division areas, in accordance with the tip characteristics;

    a luminance calculator that calculates a plurality of segment luminance values corresponding to the plurality of division areas, and that calculates a total luminance value indicating a total brightness of the subject image by multiplying each of the plurality of the segment luminance values by a corresponding weighted coefficient among the plurality of weighted coefficients; and

    a light-amount adjuster that adjusts a quantity of light illuminating the subject in accordance with the total luminance value.

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