Endoscope image pick-up apparatus

• US 7,195,588 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2004
• Issued: 03/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Azuma, Motoo, Homan, Masatoshi, Kotouda, Kaoru
• Primary Examiner(s): Leubecker; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): SMITH, PHILIP ROBERT
• Application Number:
  US10/790,327
• Publication Number:
  US 20050192476A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,121 Days
• Field of Search: 600117-118, 600/109, 600/106, 600/476
• US Class Current: 600/118
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00006 of control signals
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00016 using wireless means
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/00036 Means for power saving, e.g. sleeping mode
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 1/041 Capsule endoscopes for imaging
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7232 involving compression of the physiological signal, e.g. to extend the signal recording period

Abstract

An image pick-up unit inserted in the body picks up an image of the body, and transmits by radio the image to an extra-corporeal unit which is arranged outside the body. The image pick-up unit includes an image pick-up portion capturing an image, a data transmitting portion for transmitting the image obtained by the image pick-up portion to the extra-corporeal unit at a plurality of transmitting ratios, a characteristic amount detecting portion for detecting a predetermined amount of characteristics based on the image, and a determining portion for determining a valid image based on an output from the characteristic amount detecting portion. The data transmitting portion controls the data transmitting ratio in accordance with the determining result of the determining portion.

Claims

1. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus comprising:

an image pick-up unit for insertion into the body for capturing an image;

an extra-corporeal unit arranged outside the body, the extra-corporeal unit receiving the image captured by the image pick-up unit by radio;

a data transmitting device provided in the image pick-up unit for transmitting the image obtained by the image pick-up device to the extra-corporeal unit at a plurality of transmitting ratios;

a characteristic amount detecting device provided in the image pick-up unit for detecting a first amount of characteristics and a second amount of characteristics different from the first amount of characteristics from the image obtained by the image pick-up unit, the first amount of characteristics detected by the characteristic amount detecting device being a number of pixels having a specific color; and

a determining device provided in the image pick-up unit for determining a validity of the image according to the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device, the determining device having a first determining device for determining the validity of the image based on the number of pixels having a specific color detected as the first amount of characteristics, and a second determining device for determining the validity of the image based on the second amount of characteristics, the second amount of characteristics being selected from optical characteristics other than color-specific characteristics, the data transmitting device controls the data transmitting ratio in accordance with the determining result of the determining device.

2. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the characteristic amount detecting device comprises:

a pixel number detecting device for detecting the number of pixels having a specific color in the image;

a pixel number storing device for storing the detected number of pixels; and

a pixel number comparing and calculating device for comparing and calculating the past number of pixels stored in the pixel number storing device and the current number of pixels and for outputting the change amount of the number of pixels as the characteristic amount, and the determining device determines that the image is valid when the change amount of number of pixels is a predetermined threshold value or more.

3. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image pick-up unit comprises a command receiving device for receiving a plurality of types of commands from the extra-corporeal unit, and the data transmitting device controls a data transmitting ratio based on the command received by the command receiving device, and invalidates the control of the data transmitting ratio by the determining device based on another command received by the command receiving device.

4. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first determining device compares the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device with a first threshold value to determine whether the image is valid or invalid, and outputs an invalid-indicating signal if the image is determined as the invalid one, and the data transmitting device responds to the invalid-indicating signal outputted from the first determining device to stop transmitting the corresponding image.

5. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first determining device compares the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device with a first threshold value to determine whether the image is valid or invalid, and outputs an invalid-indicating signal if the image is determined as the invalid one, and the data transmitting device responds to the invalid-indicating signal outputted from the first determining device to lower the transmitting ratio of the corresponding image.

6. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1,wherein the second determining device compares the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device with a second threshold value to determine whether the image is a target image or not, and outputs an target-indicating signal if the image is determined as the target one, and the data transmitting device responds to the target-indicating signal outputted from the second determining device to raise the transmitting ratio of the corresponding image.

7. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first determining device compares the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device with a first threshold value to determine whether the image is valid or invalid, and outputs an invalid-indicating signal if the image is determined as the invalid one, the second determining device compares the characteristic amount detected by the characteristic amount detecting device with a second threshold value to determine whether the image is a target image or not, and outputs an target-indicating signal if the image is determined as the target one, and the data transmitting device responds to the invalid-indicating signal outputted from the first determining device to stop transmitting the corresponding image, and responds to the target-indicating signal outputted from the second determining device to raise the transmitting ratio of the corresponding image.

8. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second amount of characteristics is an average value of luminance values in the image.

9. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus comprising:

an image pick-up unit for insertion into the body for capturing an image;

an extra-corporeal unit arranged outside the body, the extra-corporeal unit receiving the image captured by the image pick-up unit by radio;

a determining device provided in the image pick-up unit for determining a validity of the image according to a characteristic amount detected by a characteristic amount detecting device, the determining device having a first determining device for determining the validity of the image based on the number of pixels having a specific color detected as a first amount of characteristics, and a second determining device for determining the validity of the image based on a second amount of characteristics, the second amount of characteristics being selected from optical characteristics other than color-specific characteristics ; and

a data processing device provided in the image pick-up unit for performing the processing for reducing the data amount of the image obtained by the image pick-up device at a plurality of ratios, the data processing device controlling a reducing ratio of data amount in accordance with the determining result outputted by the determining device.

10. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the characteristic amount detecting device comprises a pixel number detecting device for detecting the number of pixels having a specific color in the image as the characteristic amount, and the determining device determines that the image is valid when the number of specific-color pixels is a predetermined threshold value or more.

11. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the characteristic amount detecting device comprises:

a pixel number detecting device for detecting the number of pixels having a specific color in the image;

a pixel number storing device for storing the detected number of pixels; and

a pixel number comparing and calculating device for comparing and calculating the past number of pixels stored in the pixel number storing device and the current number of pixels and for outputting the change amount of number of pixels as the characteristic amount, and the determining device determines that the image is valid when the change amount of the number of pixels is a predetermined threshold value or more.

12. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the data processing device comprises an image reducing device for reducing image data at a plurality of reducing ratios.

13. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the data processing device comprises a bit-length adjusting device for switching the bit length of the image data to one of a plurality of lengths.

14. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the data processing device comprises an image cut-out device for cutting out a part of the image data and for outputting the cut-out image.

15. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the data processing device comprises a compressing device for compressing the image data at a plurality of compressing ratios.

16. An endoscope image pick-up apparatus according to claim 9, wherein the image pick-up unit comprises a command receiving device for receiving a plurality of types of commands from the extra-corporeal unit, and

the data processing device controls a reducing ratio of data amount based on the command received by the command receiving device, and invalidates the control of the reducing ratio of data amount by the determining device based on another command received by the command receiving device.