# US 2020/0404189 A1 · Image rotation in an endoscopic laser mapping imaging system > Agents: this data is available as JSON from the patentgrep API and MCP server — see https://patentgrep.com/llms.txt - Number: US 2020/0404189 A1 - Document ID: US20200404189A1 - Status: Published application - Kind: A1 - Application number: 16/807,806 - Filed: 2020-03-03 - Published: 2020-12-24 - Earliest claimed: 2019-06-20 - Assignees: Ethicon, Inc. - Applicants: Ethicon LLC - Inventors: Joshua D. Talbert; Donald M. Wichern - Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US20200404189A1 ## CPC - H04N 23/56: provided with illuminating means - A61B 1/00006: {of control signals} - A61B 1/000095: {for image enhancement} - A61B 1/043: {for fluorescence imaging} - A61B 1/045: Control thereof - A61B 1/051: {Details of CCD assembly} - A61B 1/063: {for monochromatic or narrow-band illumination} - A61B 1/0638: {providing two or more wavelengths} - A61B 1/0646: {with illumination filters} - A61B 1/0653: {with wavelength conversion} - A61B 1/0655: {Control therefor} - A61B 1/07: using light-conductive means, e.g. optical fibres - G06T 1/20: Processor architectures; Processor configuration, e.g. pipelining - G06T 3/60: Rotation of whole images or parts thereof - H04N 5/2621: {Cameras specially adapted for the electronic generation of special effects during image pickup, e.g. digital cameras, camcorders, video cameras having integrated special effects capability} - H04N 5/265: Mixing - A61B 5/0075: {by spectroscopy, i.e. measuring spectra, e.g. Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy (A61B5/0071 takes precedence)} - A61B 5/0261: {using optical means, e.g. infrared light} - A61B 5/20: for measuring urological functions {restricted to the evaluation of the urinary system (A61B5/4375 takes precedence)} - A61B 5/4887: {Locating particular structures in or on the body} - A61B 5/489: {Blood vessels} - A61B 5/4893: {Nerves} - H04N 23/555: {for picking-up images in sites, inaccessible due to their dimensions or hazardous conditions, e.g. endoscopes or borescopes} - H04N: PICTORIAL COMMUNICATION, e.g. TELEVISION - A61B: DIAGNOSIS; SURGERY; IDENTIFICATION (usefulness limited to only animals A61D) - G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL ## Abstract Image rotation in an endoscopic laser mapping imaging system is described. A system includes an emitter for emitting pulses of electromagnetic radiation and an image sensor comprising a pixel array for sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation. The system includes a rotation sensor for detecting an angle of rotation of a lumen relative to a handpiece of an endoscope. The system is such that at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter is a laser mapping pattern. ## Claims ### Claim 1 A system for endoscopic imaging, the system comprising: an emitter for emitting pulses of electromagnetic radiation; an image sensor comprising a pixel array for sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation, wherein the image sensor is disposed within a lumen of an endoscope; a rotation sensor for detecting an angle of rotation of the lumen relative to a handpiece of the endoscope; and a controller in electronic communication with the emitter and the image sensor; wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter comprises a laser mapping pattern. ### Claim 2 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the lumen is rotatable about an axis of the endoscope and with respect to the handpiece. ### Claim 3 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, further comprising: an image signal processing pipeline for performing rotation transformations on exposure frames captured by the image sensor based on the angle of rotation detected by the rotation sensor; wherein the image signal processing pipeline rotates the exposure frames counter to the angle of rotation to maintain a consistent image horizon of a scene being imaged by the image sensor. ### Claim 4 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the rotation sensor is a rotation-detecting Hall-effect sensor and is located in the handpiece of the endoscope. ### Claim 5 (depends on 4) The system of claim 4, further comprising a diametrically-polarized, magnetic annulus, and wherein the rotation sensor generates a voltage that is used to detect an angle of the diametrically-polarized, magnetic annulus. ### Claim 6 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the rotation sensor generates a voltage that is used to detect the angle of rotation of the lumen relative to the handpiece. ### Claim 7 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the rotation sensor is a potentiometer comprising a carbon filament, wherein the carbon filament is disposed within the lumen of the endoscope. ### Claim 8 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the rotation sensor comprises a light source and a photo diode that rotate relative to a gradient disc, and wherein the photo diode detects electromagnetic energy emitted by the light source that is reflected off the gradient disc. ### Claim 9 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, further comprising an image signal processing pipeline for performing rotation transformations on exposure frames captured by the image sensor based on the angle of rotation detected by the rotation sensor, wherein calculating the image rotation transformation comprises: identifying integer (x,y) coordinates for pixel data in an exposure frame captured by a pixel of the pixel array; applying a rotation kernel to the integer (x,y) coordinates to transform the integer (x,y) coordinates to real number pixel coordinates; truncating the real number pixel coordinates to integer values; and assigning values to blank pixel data in the exposure frame using values of nearby, filled pixel data from the exposure frame. ### Claim 10 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, further comprising an image signal processing pipeline for performing rotation transformations on exposure frames captured by the image sensor based on the angle of rotation detected by the rotation sensor, wherein calculating the image rotation transformation comprises: identifying integer (x,y) coordinates for pixel data in an exposure frame captured by a pixel of the pixel array; applying an inverse rotation kernel to the integer (x,y) coordinates to transform the integer (x,y) coordinates to real number (x,y) coordinates; and estimating a pixel value at the real number (x,y) coordinates using data from one or more closest integer coordinate locations; wherein the estimating is performed using one of nearest neighbor substitution, bilinear interpolation, or bicubic interpolation. ### Claim 11 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the image sensor is configured to generate a plurality of exposure frames, wherein each of the plurality of exposure frames corresponds to a pulse of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter. ### Claim 12 (depends on 11) The system of claim 11, wherein the pixel array of the image sensor senses reflected electromagnetic radiation to generate the plurality of exposure frames during a readout period of the pixel array, wherein the readout period is a duration of time when active pixels in the pixel array are read. ### Claim 13 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the emitter is configured to emit, during a pulse duration, a plurality of sub-pulses of electromagnetic radiation having a sub-duration shorter than the pulse duration. ### Claim 14 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein one or more of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter comprises electromagnetic radiation emitted at two or more wavelengths simultaneously as a single pulse or a single sub-pulse. ### Claim 15 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter is a fluorescence excitation emission that results in a fluorescence exposure frame created by the image sensor, and wherein the controller is configured to provide the fluorescence exposure frame to a corresponding system that determines a location of a critical tissue structure within a scene based on the fluorescence exposure frame. ### Claim 16 (depends on 15) The system of claim 15, wherein the fluorescence excitation emission comprises one or more of: electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength from about 770 nm to about 790 nm; or electromagnetic radiation having the wavelength from about 795 nm to about 815 nm. ### Claim 17 (depends on 16) The system of claim 16, wherein the controller is further configured to: receive the location of the critical tissue structure from the corresponding fluorescence system; generate an overlay frame comprising the location of the critical tissue structure; and combine the overlay frame with a color image frame depicting the scene to indicate the location of the critical tissue structure within the scene. ### Claim 18 (depends on 17) The system of claim 17, wherein sensing the reflected electromagnetic radiation by the pixel array comprises generating a laser mapping exposure frame by sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation resulting from the emitter pulsing the laser mapping pattern, and wherein the controller is further configured to: provide the laser mapping exposure frame to a corresponding laser mapping system that determines a topology of the scene and/or dimensions of one or more objects within the scene; provide the location of the critical tissue structure to the corresponding laser mapping system; and receive a topology and/or dimension of the critical tissue structure from the corresponding laser mapping system. ### Claim 19 (depends on 18) The system of claim 18, wherein the critical structure comprises one or more of a nerve, a ureter, a blood vessel, an artery, a blood flow, or a tumor. ### Claim 20 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to synchronize timing of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation during a blanking period of the image sensor, wherein the blanking period corresponds to a time between a readout of a last row of active pixels in the pixel array and a beginning of a next subsequent readout of active pixels in the pixel array. ### Claim 21 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein two or more pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter result in two or more instances of reflected electromagnetic radiation that are sensed by the pixel array to generate two or more exposure frames that are combined to form an image frame. ### Claim 22 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the image sensor comprises a first image sensor and a second image sensor such that the image sensor can generate a three-dimensional image. ### Claim 23 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the emitter is configured to emit a sequence of pulses of electromagnetic radiation repeatedly sufficient for generating a video stream comprising a plurality of image frames, wherein each image frame in the video stream comprises data from a plurality of exposure frames, and wherein each of the exposure frames corresponds to a pulse of electromagnetic radiation. ### Claim 24 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the pulses of electromagnetic radiation are emitted in a pattern of varying wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, and wherein the emitter repeats the pattern of varying wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. ### Claim 25 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation comprise a red emission, a green emission, a blue emission, and a laser mapping emission such that reflected electromagnetic radiation sensed by the pixel array corresponding to each of the red emission, the green emission, the blue emission, and the laser mapping emission can be processed to generate a color RGB image frame comprising an overlay of laser mapping data. ### Claim 26 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation comprise a luminance emission, a red chrominance emission, a blue chrominance emission, and a laser mapping emission such that reflected electromagnetic radiation sensed by the pixel array corresponding to each of the luminance emission, the red chrominance emission, the blue chrominance emission, and the laser mapping emission can be processed to generate a YCbCr image frame comprising an overlay of laser mapping data. ### Claim 27 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation by the pixel array comprises generating a laser mapping exposure frame by sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation resulting from the emitter pulsing the laser mapping pattern, wherein the laser mapping exposure frame comprises information for determining real time measurements comprising one or more of: a distance from an endoscope to an object; an angle between an endoscope and the object; or surface topology information about the object. ### Claim 28 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein the laser mapping exposure frame comprises information for determining the real time measurements to an accuracy of less than 10 centimeters. ### Claim 29 (depends on 27) The system of claim 27, wherein the laser mapping exposure frame comprises information for determining the real time measurements to an accuracy of less than one millimeter. ### Claim 30 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter comprises a plurality of tool-specific laser mapping patterns for each of a plurality of tools within a scene. ### Claim 31 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein the laser mapping pattern emitted by the emitter comprises a first output and a second output that are independent from one another, wherein the first output is for light illumination and the second output is for tool tracking. ### Claim 32 (depends on 1) The system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the pulses of electromagnetic radiation emitted by the emitter is a hyperspectral emission that results in a hyperspectral exposure frame created by the image sensor, and wherein the controller is configured to provide the hyperspectral exposure frame to a corresponding hyperspectral system that determines a location of a critical tissue structure within a scene based on the hyperspectral exposure frame. ### Claim 33 (depends on 32) The system of claim 32, wherein the hyperspectral emission comprises: electromagnetic radiation having the wavelength from about 513 nm to about 545 nm and electromagnetic radiation having the wavelength from about 900 nm to about 1000 nm; or electromagnetic radiation having the wavelength from about 565 nm to about 585 nm and electromagnetic radiation having the wavelength from about 900 nm to about 1000 nm. ### Claim 34 (depends on 33) The system of claim 33, wherein the controller is further configured to: receive the location of the critical tissue structure from the corresponding hyperspectral system; generate an overlay frame comprising the location of the critical tissue structure; and combine the overlay frame with a color image frame depicting the scene to indicate the location of the critical tissue structure within the scene. ### Claim 35 (depends on 34) The system of claim 34, wherein sensing the reflected electromagnetic radiation by the pixel array comprises generating a laser mapping exposure frame by sensing reflected electromagnetic radiation resulting from the emitter pulsing the laser mapping pattern, and wherein the controller is further configured to: provide the laser mapping exposure frame to a corresponding laser mapping system that determines a topology of the scene and/or dimensions of one or more objects within the scene; provide the location of the critical tissue structure to the corresponding laser mapping system; and receive a topology and/or dimension of the critical tissue structure from the corresponding laser mapping system. ### Claim 36 (depends on 35) The system of claim 35, wherein the critical structure comprises one or more of a nerve, a ureter, a blood vessel, an artery, a blood flow, or a tumor.