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AssigneeOlympus Optical Co., Ltd.
InventorsHitoshi Ueno, Takeshi Ozawa, Kazunari Nakamura, Isami Hirao, Hiroshi Ibe, Koichi Yoshimitsu, Yuichi Morizane, Mamoru Kaneko, Shunya Akimoto, Masaki Terakubo, Katsuichi Imaizumi, Nobuyuki Doguchi, Sakae Takehana
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In a light source unit, a switchable filter section in which an RGB filter and a fluorescence observation filter can be shifted into the light path is disposed in front of a lamp. When fluorescence image mode is selected, excitation light in a part of the wavelength band of the blue wavelength band is supplied to an electronic endoscope, and the excitation light which is reflected by the subject is shielded by an excitation light shielding filter situated in front of a CCD, whereby a fluorescence image can be obtained. On the other hand, if normal-light image mode is selected, then R, G, B light is supplied sequentially, and even under illumination of B light, the color component image in the wavelength bands which are not shielded by the excitation light shielding filter are captured, thereby yielding a normal-light image also, and hence making it possible to capture both a fluorescence image and a normal-light image by means of a single image pickup element.
An endoscope device capable of displaying images by switching between and displaying a normal-light image mode using white light and a fluorescence image mode including fluorescence information, comprising:
An endoscope for capturing fluorescence images, by transmitting excitation light and irradiating the same onto a subject by means of an illumination optical system, and receiving the light by means of a single image pickup element, via an excitation light shielding filter which shields excitation light reflected by the subject,
An image processing device for an endoscope, wherein a wavelength band filter for shielding at least a part of the blue wavelength band is disposed in front of an image pickup element built into the endoscope, for image processing the signal output by said image pickup element, and generating color image signals whilst switching between a normal-light image mode using white light and a fluorescence image mode including fluorescence information,
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