Electronic endoscope apparatus
View Patent ↗An electronic endoscope apparatus includes an imaging element and a signal processing unit. The imaging element obtains an image of an observation object, and outputs an image signal of the observation object. The signal processing unit alternately repeats obtainment of a partial image signal using a part of a light receiving area of the imaging element and obtainment of a partial image signal using the remaining part of the light receiving area. The signal processing unit also obtains a whole image signal corresponding to an image of the observation object using a partial image signal obtained in the n-th (n is a natural number) obtainment and a partial image signal obtained in the (n+1)th obtainment. Further, a partial component of the n-th partial image signal is extracted by an extraction unit, and the extracted partial component is added to the (n+1)th partial image signal.
1. An electronic endoscope apparatus comprising:
an imaging element which obtains an image of an observation object at a light receiving area of the imaging element by receiving light reflected by the observation object when the observation object is illuminated with light, and which outputs an image signal of the observation object; and
a signal processing unit which alternately repeats obtainment of a first partial image signal using a part of the light receiving area of the imaging element and obtainment of a second partial image signal using a remaining part of the light receiving area, and which obtains a whole image signal corresponding to an image of the observation object using the first partial image signal obtained in an n-th (n is a natural number) obtainment and the second partial image signal obtained in an (n+1)th obtainment, wherein the image signal processing unit includes an extraction unit for extracting a blurred image signal, which is obtained by administering a blur process on at least one of a brightness component and a color component of the n-th partial image signal and an addition unit for adding the blur signal, extracted by the extraction unit, to the (n+1)th partial image signal.
2. An electronic endoscope apparatus as defined in claim 1 , wherein the imaging element is provided with a color filter.
3. An electronic endoscope apparatus as defined in claim 2 , wherein the color filter is a complementary color filter.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first partial image signal is obtained from odd fields of the image signal from the imaging element, and wherein the second partial image is obtained from even fields of the image signal from the imaging element, and the whole image comprises a composite of the even fields and odd fields.
5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein each of the odd fields and each of the even fields includes multiple color components, and blur processing is performed on the luminance.
6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the blur processing is performed on both the luminance and color components.