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US 6,582,363 B2Granted
Video endoscope system and illumination optical system
AssigneePENTAX Corporation
InventorsRensuke Adachi, Hideo Sugimoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
White light that was emitted from a white light source and converged through a condenser lens enters a light guide with a maximum incidence angle α. Since excitation light emitted from an excitation light source is adjusted by the adjustment optical system for its beam diameter, it enters the light guide with a maximum incidence angle β (β<α) after being converged by the condenser lens. Then, a motion mechanism displaces a second lens in an adjustment optical system in the direction of the optical axis to vary the beam diameter and the maximum incidence angle β of the excitation light, whereby a divergence angle of the excitation light emitted through a light distribution lens is made to correspond to the divergence angle of the visible light.
Claims23
An illumination optical system comprising:
- a light guide that has a fiber bundle for emitting a light beam incident upon its proximal end face through its distal end face;
- a visible lamp for generating visible light;
- a first optical system for forming the visible light generated by the visible lamp into a collimated light beam;
- an excitation lamp for generating excitation light that excites living tissue to cause fluorescence;
- a second optical system for forming excitation light generated by the excitation light lamp into a collimated light beam whose diameter is smaller than that of the collimated light beam of the visible light formed by the first optical system;
- a switching mechanism that alternately guides the visible light formed into the collimated light beam by the first optical system and the excitation light formed into the collimated light beam by the second optical system to a common optical path;
- and
- a condenser optical system that converges the visible light and the excitation light guided by the switching mechanism to the common optical path onto the proximal end face of said fiber bundle.
5 more elements
An illumination optical system comprising:
- a light guide that has a fiber bundle for emitting a beam incident upon its proximal end face through its distal end face;
- a first light source for emitting a beam in a predetermined first wavelength region;
- a second light source for emitting a beam in a second wavelength region which is on a shorter wavelength side than said first wavelength region;
- a switching mechanism for alternatively guiding the beams emitted from these light sources toward the proximal end of said light guide;
- a condenser lens positioned in the optical path between said light guide and said switching mechanism to converge the beam guided by said switching mechanism onto the proximal end face of the fiber bundle;
- and
- an adjustment optical system that adjusts a maximum incidence angle of the beam in said second wavelength region with respect to the proximal end face of said fiber bundle so as to be smaller than a maximum incidence angle of the beam in said first wavelength region with respect to the proximal end face of said fiber bundle so that the divergence angle of the beam in the first wavelength region emitted from the distal end face of said fiber bundle may be equal to the divergence angle of the beam in the second wavelength region emitted from the distal end face of said fiber bundle.
4 more elements
A video endoscope system comprising:
- a light-guide optical system that has a fiber bundle for emitting a beam incident on its proximal end face through its distal end face toward an object;
- a visible light lamp for generating visible light;
- a first optical system for forming the visible light generated by the visible light lamp into a collimated light beam;
- an excitation light lamp for generating excitation light that excites living tissue to cause fluorescence;
- a second optical system for forming the excitation light generated by the excitation light lamp into a collimated light beam of which diameter is smaller than that of a collimated light beam of the visible light formed by the first optical system;
- a switching mechanism that alternately guides the visible light formed into the collimated light beam by the first optical system and the excitation light formed into the collimate light beam by the second optical system to a common optical path;
- a condenser lens that converges the visible light and the excitation light alternately guided by the switching mechanism onto the proximal end face of said fiber bundle;
- an objective optical system that focuses wavelength components of the light from a surface of the object other than the excitation light to form an image of the object;
- an imaging device that picks up an image of the object formed by said objective optical system to convert it into an image signal;
- and
- a processor that forms a reference image signal based on the image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the visible light is guided by said switching mechanism and forms a fluorescence image signal based on the image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the excitation light was guided by said switching mechanism.
8 more elements
A video endoscope system comprising:
- a light-guide optical system that has a fiber bundle for emitting a beam incident on its proximal end face through its distal end face toward an object;
- a light source unit that emits the visible light and the excitation light that excites living tissue to cause fluorescence, alternately guides the visible light and the excitation light to common optical path, and converges the guided light onto the proximal end face of said fiber bundle;
- an adjustment optical system that adjusts a maximum incidence angle of the excitation light with respect to the proximal end face of said fiber bundle so as to be smaller than the maximum incidence light of the visible light with respect thereto;
- an objective optical system that converges wavelength components of light from the surface of the object other than the excitation light to form an image of the object;
- an imaging device that picks up an image of an object formed by said objective optical system to convert it into an image signal;
- a processor that forms a reference image signal based on the image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the visible light is guided by said light source unit and forms a fluorescence image signal based on the image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the excitation light is guided by said light source unit.
3 more elements
A video endoscope system comprising:
- a light guide that has a fiber bundle for emitting a beam incident upon its a proximal end face through its distal end face toward an object;
- a first light source for emitting visible light;
- a second light source for emitting excitation light that is ultraviolet light in a predetermined wavelength region that excites living tissue to cause autofluorescence;
- a switch mechanism for alternatively guiding the visible light and the ultraviolet light toward the proximal end face of said fiber bundle;
- a condenser lens that is positioned in the optical path between said fiber bundle and said switching mechanism to converge the light guided by said switching mechanism onto the proximal end face of the fiber bundle;
- an adjustment optical system that adjusts a maximum incidence angle of said excitation light with respect to the proximal end face of said fiber bundle so as to be smaller than a maximum incidence angle of said visible light with respect to the proximal end face of said fiber bundle so that a divergence angle of the visible light emitted from the distal end face of said light guide and the divergence angle of the excitation light emitted from the distal end face of said fiber bundle correspond to each other;
- an objective optical system for focusing wavelength components of light from a surface of the object, other than the excitation light to form an image of the object;
- an imaging device for picking up an image of the object formed by said objective optical system to convert it into an image signal;
- and
- a processor that controls the switching mechanism so that said visible light and said excitation light enter said fiber bundle alternately and repeatedly, generates normal image data based on an image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the visible light is guided by said switching optical system, generates fluorescence image data based on an image signal that is acquired by the imaging device during a period when the excitation light is guided by said switching optical system, obtains reference image data from said normal image data, extracts specific image data by subtracting the obtained reference image data from said fluorescence image data, and generates diagnostic image data to be displayed as a moving picture by superimposing the extracted specific image data on said normal image data.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.