Advanced periodontal endoscope and methods

An endoscope, comprising:

• an imaging arrangement for imaging an image area proximate to a distal end of the endoscope to produce a video image stream having a series of frames that is transferred to a proximal end of the endoscope for viewing by an operator, the imaging arrangement configured to produce the video image stream based on a limited dynamic range;
• an illumination arrangement including an illumination light source to produce an illumination light that illuminates the image area at an illumination level that is controllable responsive to an illumination drive signal;
• and
• an automatic luminance controller that generates the illumination drive signal to modulate the illumination light source at least within each frame as the frame is scanned based on said dynamic range such that high intensity areas of the frame receive a reduced amount of illumination light by reducing the illumination drive signal as compared to low intensity areas of the frame which receive an increased amount of illumination light by increasing the illumination drive signal relative to the high intensity areas.

An endoscope, comprising:

• an imaging arrangement for scanning an image area proximate to a distal end of the endoscope to produce a video image stream having a series of frames that is transferred to a proximal end of the endoscope for viewing by an operator, the imaging arrangement configured to produce the video image stream based on a limited dynamic range;
• an illumination arrangement including an illumination light source to produce an illumination light that illuminates the image area at an illumination level that is controllable responsive to an illumination drive signal;
• and
• an automatic luminance controller configured to generate the illumination drive signal responsive to scanning of the image area by selectively illuminating the image area such that each unit of a plurality of units that make up each frame receives a selected illumination value based on adjusting the illumination drive signal on a unit-by-unit basis during each scan.

An endoscope, comprising:

• an imaging arrangement for scanning an image area proximate to a distal end of the endoscope to produce a video image stream having a series of frames that is transferred to a proximal end of the endoscope for viewing by an operator, the imaging arrangement configured to produce the video image stream based on a limited dynamic range;
• an illumination arrangement including an illumination light source to produce an illumination light that illuminates the image area at an illumination level that is controllable responsive to an illumination drive signal;
• and
• an automatic luminance controller configured to generate the illumination drive signal based on an illumination compensation template that specifies an illumination value for each one of a plurality of units of each frame such that the image area is illuminated for each unit, responsive to the illumination drive signal, at a corresponding illumination value that is taken from the illumination compensation template, as each unit of each frame is scanned by the imaging arrangement.

A method for operating an endoscope, comprising:

• scanning an image area proximate to a distal end of the endoscope to produce a video image stream having a series of frames that is transferred to a proximal end of the endoscope for viewing by an operator, the imaging arrangement configured to produce the video image stream based on a limited dynamic range;
• illuminating the image area at an illumination level that is controllable responsive to an illumination drive signal;
• and
• modulating the illumination level at least within each frame as the frame is scanned based on said dynamic range such that high intensity areas of the frame receive a reduced amount of illumination light by reducing the illumination drive signal as compared to low intensity areas of the frame which receive an increased amount of illumination light by increasing the illuminating drive signal relative to the high intensity areas.