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US 9,319,568 B2Granted
Endoscope system and external control device for endoscope
AssigneeFUJIFILM Corporation
InventorManabu Kotani
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In the processor device connected to the endoscope, the imaging signal transmitted in serial from an imaging chip of the endoscope is converted by an S/P converter to parallel data, and is then decoded by an 8B10B decoder. When data corruption occurs due to noise or the like during transmission of the imaging signal and normal pixel data cannot be obtained due to decode error at an 8B10B decoder, that pixel data is interpolated with pixel data of a peripheral part in an inner memory of an image processing circuit.
Claims15
An endoscope system comprising:
- an imaging device having a solid-state imaging element mounted at a tip of an insertion part of an endoscope;
- an external control device connected as an external device for the endoscope to the imaging device via a signal line and controlling the imaging device;
- an encoding device in the imaging device, the encoding device sequentially encoding pixel data for each pixel sequentially outputted from the solid-state imaging element as an imaging signal for sequential conversion to word data for each word;
- an imaging signal transmitting device in the imaging device, the imaging signal transmitting device converting the imaging signal obtained by the sequential conversion to word data by the encoding device from a parallel signal to a serial signal and transmitting the converted imaging signal to the external control device through the signal line;
- an imaging signal receiving device in the external control device, the imaging signal receiving device receiving the imaging signal transmitted by the imaging signal transmitting device and sequentially converting word data sequentially received as the imaging signal from the serial signal to a parallel signal for each word;
- a decoding device in the external control device, the decoding device sequentially decoding the word data obtained by the sequential conversion to the parallel signal by the imaging signal receiving device for each word for sequential conversion to pixel data for each pixel before the encoding is performed by the encoding device;
- a storage device storing pixel data obtained by the sequential conversion by the decoding device;
- a decode error detecting device in the decoding device, the decode error detecting device detecting an occurrence of a decode error indicative of a failure of the decoding;
- and
- an interpolating device, when the occurrence of the decode error is detected by the decode error detecting device, interpolating pixel data of an error pixel by storing, in a memory area of the storage device where the pixel data of the error pixel is to be stored with a pixel at a time of the occurrence of the decode error being taken as the error pixel, interpolation data generated based on pixel data of one or a plurality of pixels forming a peripheral part of the error pixel, wherein
- the imaging device includes a synchronous data inserting device inserting word synchronous data into the imaging signal to be transmitted to the external control device,
- the synchronous data is used to synchronize the word data, and
- the external control device includes a synchronization processing device detecting the word synchronous data in the imaging signal received from the imaging signal receiving device and, based on the detected word synchronous data, adjusting a timing of delimiting into word data for each word in the conversion by the imaging signal receiving device to the parallel signal or the conversion by the decoding device to the pixel data, to make word synchronization.
10 more elements
An external control device for an endoscope, the external control device controlling an imaging device of the endoscope and receiving an imaging signal transmitted from the imaging device as a serial signal, the external control device sequentially receiving word data for each word obtained by sequentially encoding, for each pixel, pixel data sequentially outputted from the imaging device as the imaging signal, the external control device comprising:
- an imaging signal receiving device receiving the imaging signal transmitted from the imaging device and sequentially converting word data sequentially received as the imaging signal from the serial signal to a parallel signal for each word;
- a decoding device sequentially decoding the word data obtained by the sequential conversion to the parallel signal by the imaging signal receiving device for each word for sequential conversion to pixel data for each pixel before the encoding;
- a storage device storing pixel data obtained by the sequential conversion by the decoding device;
- a decode error detecting device in the decoding device, the decode error detecting device detecting an occurrence of a decode error indicative of a failure of the decoding;
- and
- an interpolating device, when the occurrence of the decode error is detected by the decode error detecting device, interpolating pixel data of an error pixel by storing, in a memory area of the storage device where the pixel data of the error pixel is to be stored with a pixel at a time of the occurrence of the decode error being taken as the error pixel, interpolation data generated based on pixel data of one or plurality of pixels forming a peripheral part of the error pixel, wherein
- word synchronous data is inserted into the imaging signal to be transmitted from the imaging device,
- the synchronous data is used to synchronize the word data, and
- the external control device includes a synchronization processing device detecting the word synchronous data in the imaging signal received from the imaging signal receiving device and, based on the detected word synchronous data, adjusting a timing of delimiting into word data for each word for word synchronization in the conversion to the parallel signal by the imaging signal receiving device or in the conversion to the pixel data by the decoding device.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.