Imaging a patient's interior

Abstract

A system (100) is provided for imaging a patient's interior. The system comprises an imaging sensor (120) for acquiring a series of images of a region of interest (020) in the patient's interior, and a plurality of light sources (140) for illuminating the region of interest in the patient's interior from different light source directions (152-156). A light controller (160) is provided for controlling individual ones (142-146) of the plurality of light sources (140) to dynamically vary the light source directions (152-156) during said acquiring. Moreover, a processor (180) is provided for obtaining lighting data (164) indicative of the dynamically varying light source directions. The processor (180) is further arranged for using the lighting data to apply a photometric stereo technique to the image data so as to establish a three-dimensional [3D] surface profile of the region of interest. The processor (180) is further provided to detect insufficiently illuminated areas of the region of interest (020-024) in the images acquired by the imaging sensor (120), using the 3D surface profile of the region of interest. Accordingly, the system is enabled to establish a 3D surface profile of the region of interest from a series of images in a convenient and cost-effective manner.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.