1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope system that includes an image pickup apparatus, a processor, and an image processing apparatus that generates a video signal.
2. Description of the Related Art
An endoscope that functions as an image pickup apparatus is provided with an elongated insertion portion that acquires an optical image at a distal end portion. Also, an inside of a subject which cannot be observed from the outside can be observed as an endoscopic image by inserting the insertion portion into the subject.
In particular, with an electronic endoscope, an optical image of a subject is photoelectrically converted using an image pickup device or the like, and transmitted to an image processing apparatus as an electrical signal. After being processed by the image processing apparatus, the optical image is displayed as an endoscopic image on a display unit such as a monitor and observed.
With an endoscope system using such an electronic endoscope, a higher definition endoscopic image is required to perform a more reliable determination and treatment.
An endoscope system is proposed that converts an electrical image pickup signal into an optical signal, transmits the optical signal using optical fiber instead of transmitting an electrical signal using a metal conducting wire because the amount of data of the image pickup signal of a high definition endoscopic image is large, and then converts the transmitted optical signal back into an electrical image pickup signal and perfoims image processing and the like.
For example, International Publication No. WO 2012/46856 describes an endoscope system that includes an electric cable and a fiber optic cable that transmit pixel infoiiiiation outputted by an light receiving portion, an image processing portion that generates an image on the basis of the pixel information transmitted from the fiber optic cable or the pixel information transmitted from the electric cable, and a control portion that displays the image generated by the image generating portion on a display unit and determines whether there is a transmission anomaly in the fiber optic cable, and selects, as the pixel information to be processed by the image processing portion, one of the pixel information transmitted from the fiber optic cable and the pixel information transmitted from the electric cable, in accordance with whether there is a transmission anomaly in the fiber optic cable.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds