IMAGING APPARATUS AND IMAGE GENERATING METHOD

• US 20110102578A1
• Filed: 10/20/2010
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Evident Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: AIZAKI, Shinichiro, KAMINAGA, Shigeto
• Granted Patent: US 9,100,598 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/135
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/16 adapted for ultraviolet illumination ; Fluorescence microscopes G02B21/0076 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/365 Control or image processing arrangements for digital or video microscopes G02B21/361, G02B21/362 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/70 Circuitry for compensating brightness variation in the scene
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/71 Circuitry for evaluating the brightness variation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/741 by increasing the dynamic range of the image compared to the dynamic range of the electronic image sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 25/48 Increasing resolution by shifting the sensor relative to the scene

Abstract

An imaging apparatus includes: an imaging unit for capturing an image of a fluorescent sample; a pixel shift unit for changing the relative position of the imaging unit for the image; an image correction unit for correcting the gray-scale levels of plural pieces of image data using the histograms of the image data acquired by the imaging unit at different relative positions; and an image combination unit for combining the plural pieces of image data corrected by the image correction unit.

Claims

1. An imaging apparatus, comprising:

an imaging unit capturing an image of a fluorescent sample;

a pixel shift unit changing a relative position of the imaging unit for the image;

an image correction unit correcting gray-scale levels of plural pieces of image data using histograms of the image data acquired by the imaging unit at different relative positions; and

an image combination unit combining the plural pieces of image data corrected by the image correction unit.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image correction unit allows the histograms of the plural pieces of image data whose gray scales are corrected to match.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image correction unit corrects the image data corresponding to a part of the fluorescent sample whose fluorescent coloring agent is degraded by fading.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein

the image correction unit comprises:

a histogram generation unit generating a histogram of the image data for each relative position;

a lookup table generation unit generating a lookup table by comparing the histograms; and

a gray-scale correcting unit correcting a gray scale level of the image data using the lookup table.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a subject identifying unit identifying each subject contained in the fluorescent sample from the image data, wherein

the image correction unit corrects a gray scale level of portion corresponding to the subject in the image data using a histogram for each subject of the image data.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

an unmixing unit generating, from the image data, image data for each fluorescent coloring agent contained in the fluorescent sample, wherein

the image correction unit corrects the gray scale level of the image data using the histogram of the image data generated for each fluorescent coloring agent.

7. The apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising

a fluorescence information storage unit storing wavelength data of fluorescence emitted from a fluorescent coloring agent, wherein

the unmixing unit acquires wavelength data of the fluorescence emitted from the fluorescent coloring agent contained in the fluorescent sample from the fluorescence information storage unit, and generates image data for each fluorescent coloring agent contained in the fluorescent sample using the wavelength data.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising

a microscope for observing the fluorescent sample, wherein

the imaging unit captures an image of the fluorescent sample which has passed the microscope.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein

the imaging apparatus is a digital camera for a microscope.

10. An image generating method, comprising:

changing a relative position of an imaging unit for an image of a fluorescent sample, capturing the image of the fluorescent sample at a plurality of different relative positions, and acquiring image data;

generating a histogram for each relative position from the image data acquired for each relative position;

correcting a gray-scale level of the image data using the histogram; and

combining the image data whose gray-scale levels have been corrected.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein

correcting the image data using the histogram comprises:

generating a lookup table by comparing the histograms; and

correcting a gray scale of the image data using the lookup table.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein:

the plurality of different relative positions includes one reference position and shifted positions other than the reference position;

the lookup table is generated for each shifted position by comparing the histogram of the image data at the reference position with the histogram of the image data at the shifted position.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein

correcting the image data using the histogram refers to correcting the gray scale of the image data at the shifted position, and matching the histogram of the image data at the shifted position whose gray scale has been corrected with the histogram of the image data at the reference position.