US 2004/0064016 A1Published application

Diagnosis supporting device

AssigneePENTAX Corporation

InventorsHiroyuki Kobayashi, Noriko Ota

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Abstract

Disclosed is a diagnosis supporting system that acquires a reference image signal of a subject that is illuminated with visible light and a fluorescent image signal of the subject that is excited by irradiation with excitation light, calculates a difference between brightness level of a pixel in the reference image signal and brightness level of a pixel in the fluorescent image signal at the corresponding position for all of target pixels and generates an observation image signal by converting the pixels in the reference image signal whose differences are larger than a predetermined value into red pixels. In the case of high contrast, all of the pixels become target pixels to be processed. In the case of low contrast, the number of the target pixels is reduced to ¼ of all the pixels.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A diagnosis supporting device that is connected to a processor device that acquires an image signal of an image of a subject formed at the tip of an endoscope to convert said image signal into an output video signal for a monitor, said diagnosis supporting device comprising:

an image signal acquiring section that repeatedly acquires a reference image signal and a fluorescent image signal transmitted from said process or device, said reference image signal representing an image of a subject that is illuminated with visible light and said fluorescent image signal representing an image of said subject that is excited by irradiation with excitation light to emit fluorescence;
an observation image signal generating section that counts the number of pixels having the maximum brightness level in said reference image signal whenever said image signal acquiring section acquires a set of said reference image signal and said fluorescent image signal, then that calculates a difference between brightness level of a pixel in said reference image signal and brightness level of a pixel in said fluorescent image signal at the corresponding position for all of the pixels in said reference image signal when the number of counted pixels is not larger than a predetermined threshold number or for a part of the pixels selected from said reference image signal when the number of counted pixels is larger than said threshold number, and that generates an observation image signal by converting the pixels in said reference image signal whose differences are larger than a predetermined value into specific pixels exhibiting a predetermined color;
a memory section that stores the observation image signal and updates it whenever said observation image signal generating section generates an observation image signal;
and
an output section that reads said observation image signal stored in said memory section and that converts said observation image signal into an output video signal.

2 more elements

an information register that registers information representing a first condition or information representing a second condition;
an image signal acquiring section that repeatedly acquires a reference image signal and a fluorescent image signal transmitted from said process or device, said reference image signal representing an image of a subject that is illuminated with visible light and said fluorescent image signal representing an image of said subject that is excited by irradiation with excitation light to emit fluorescence;
an observation image signal generating section that determines whether the information registered in said information register represents the first condition or the second condition whenever said image signal acquiring section acquires a set of said reference image signal and said fluorescent image signal, then calculates a difference between brightness level of a pixel in said reference image signal and brightness level of a pixel in said fluorescent image signal at the corresponding position for all of the pixels in said reference image signal when the information representing the first condition is registered or for a part of the pixels selected from said reference image signal when the information representing the second condition is registered, and that generates an observation image signal by converting the pixels in said reference image signal whose differences are larger than a predetermined value into specific pixels exhibiting a predetermined color;
a condition deciding section that registers the information representing the first condition in said information register when the number of the specific pixels exceeds a threshold number and registers the information representing the second condition in said information register when the number of the specific pixels does not exceed said threshold number;
a memory section that stores said observation image signal and updates it whenever said observation image signal generating section generates an observation image signal;
and
an output section that reads said image signal stored in said memory section and that converts said observation image signal into an output video signal.

4 more elements

an image signal acquiring section that repeatedly acquires a reference image signal and a fluorescent image signal transmitted from said process or device, said reference image signal representing an image of a subject that is illuminated with visible light and said fluorescent image signal representing an image of said subject that is excited by irradiation with excitation light to emit fluorescence;
an observation image signal generating section that counts the number of pixels having the maximum brightness level in said reference image signal whenever said image signal acquiring section acquires a set of said reference image signal and said fluorescent image signal, that calculates, when the number of counted pixels is not larger than a predetermined threshold number, a difference between brightness level of a pixel in said reference image signal and brightness level of a pixel in said fluorescent image signal at the corresponding position for all of the pixels in said reference image signal and generates an observation image signal by converting the pixels in said reference image signal whose differences are larger than a predetermined value into specific pixels exhibiting a predetermined color, and that divides, when the number of counted pixels is larger than said threshold number, all pixels in both of said reference image signal and said fluorescent image signal into several groups to calculate an average value of brightness levels of the pixels in each of the groups, calculates a difference between the average value of a group in said reference image signal and the average value of a group at the corresponding position in said fluorescent image signal for every group and generates an observation image signal by converting the pixels in the groups in said reference image signal whose difference is larger than said threshold value into specific pixels exhibiting a predetermined color;
a memory section that stores said observation image signal and updates it whenever said observation image signal generating section generates an observation image signal;
and
an output section that reads said image signal stored in said memory section and that converts said image signal into an output video signal.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.