Endoscope Exposure Control for Stable Brightness Under Halation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing endoscope systems struggle to maintain appropriate brightness during imaging when the distance to the observation target frequently fluctuates, leading to unintended brightness fluctuations due to factors like reflections from organs or tissue folds, which can result in improper dimming control and impaired observation.
Innovation Solution
An endoscope system that includes a processor for exposure amount control, calculating brightness information from edge portions of the image and adjusting the tracking speed of this control based on suppression coefficients, using past brightness information for comparison and correction to stabilize brightness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If fast tracking speed is used in dimming control, then the response to brightness changes is improved, but unintended brightness fluctuation increases due to tracking reflections and halation
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image into central portion and edge portion, calculating brightness information separately for each region. This allows the system to identify halation specifically in the edge portion without affecting the overall brightness control, resolving the contradiction by enabling fast tracking while filtering out harmful edge reflections through spatial segmentation
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback control by comparing brightness information from the central portion with target brightness, and separately monitoring edge portion brightness for halation detection. The system adjusts exposure amount based on central portion feedback while using edge portion feedback to suppress unintended brightness changes, maintaining both fast response and stability
2Adaptability or versatility
If dimming control tracks all brightness changes, then brightness adaptation is improved, but observation brightness deteriorates due to tracking halation at image edges
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the image into central portion (for brightness adaptation) and edge portion (for halation detection), allowing the system to adapt brightness based on central region feedback while ignoring halation-induced brightness changes at the edges, thus maintaining both adaptability and observation brightness
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts halation information specifically from the edge portion of the image and separates it from the overall brightness control loop. By taking out the edge brightness information and processing it separately with different control logic, the system maintains brightness adaptation capability while preventing halation from degrading observation brightness
Data Source
AI summary
An endoscope system includes a processor, in which the processor performs exposure amount control based on an endoscope image captured by an endoscope including an imaging element, calculates brightness information indicating a degree of brightness of an edge portion of the endoscope image, and controls a tracking speed of the exposure amount control according to the brightness information. The brightness information is compared with past brightness information, which is the brightness information in the past, and a suppression coefficient for suppressing a change amount or a change rate of an exposure amount, which is decided according to a comparison result, is applied to the exposure amount control to control the tracking speed.