Endoscope Color Superimposed Image Generation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional endoscope devices face challenges in effectively superimposing normal light and special light images, particularly in uniformly blending fluorescent images with normal light images, which can result in incomplete or noisy representations of fluorescent regions due to varying gradation values and noise in the special light images.
Innovation Solution
The endoscope device incorporates a blended image generation unit that selects and replaces pixels from one color component image of the normal light image with corresponding pixels from the special light image, generating a blended image with a substantially uniform distribution, and combines this with other color component images to produce a superimposed image, using various blend patterns to optimize noise reduction and color tone reproduction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the special light image is added to one color component image of the normal light image, then the fluorescent regions can be highlighted, but the blending is not uniform and noise is not effectively reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the special light image into multiple gradation ranges (first gradation range with higher values, second gradation range with lower values) and processes each range separately. This segmentation allows different blending strategies to be applied to different regions, achieving uniform blending while preserving fluorescent region visibility and reducing noise through selective pixel replacement based on gradation thresholds.
2Reliability
If region of interest with high gradation value is extracted from special light image, then fluorescent regions are emphasized, but regions with low gradation values are lost or noisy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent dynamically adjusts the blending strategy based on the gradation value of each pixel region. For high gradation regions (first range), pixel replacement is performed to emphasize fluorescent areas. For low gradation regions (second range), the blending ratio is adjusted to preserve information and reduce noise. This dynamic adaptation ensures comprehensive information retention across all gradation levels while maintaining fluorescent region visibility.
Data Source
AI summary
An endoscope device includes: an normal light image acquisition unit that acquires an normal light image; a special light image acquisition unit that acquires a special light image; a blended image generation unit that generates a blend image by combining one color component image from among a plurality of color component images constituting the normal light image and the special light image; and a superimposed image generation unit that generates a color superimposed image by combining the blended image with another color component image. The blended image generation unit generates the blended image by replacing a part of the pixels of the one color component image with the corresponding pixels of the special light image such that they are blended in a substantially uniform distribution over the entire blended image.