Image pickup apparatus using an imaging unit including an etalon and calibration method therefor

1. An etalon calibration procedure for use in an image pickup apparatus, said image pickup apparatus being an endoscope having an insertion end that is inserted within a patient in order to diagnose the presence of disease in living tissue, and said endoscope detects fluorescence emitted from a fluorescent marker under the illumination of excitation light, the fluorescent marker having been previously introduced into a subject's living tissue, said image pickup apparatus comprising:

an image pickup unit that includes

an objective optical system having multiple optical surfaces for forming an image of an object;

an image pickup element, having an image pickup surface, for converting said image to image signals;

an etalon that is located between the most object-side optical surface of the objective optical system and the image pickup surface and having a gap, the optical path length of the gap being controllable for scanning the wavelengths of light transmitted by the etalon, thereby selecting the wavelengths of the light that reach the image pickup surface;

an optical member that is located between the most object-side surface of the objective optical system and the image pickup surface, said optical member having a first wavelength range in which incident light is reflected, a second wavelength range in which incident light is transmitted, and a boundary wavelength range that is bounded at one end by the first wavelength range and at the other end by the second wavelength range, the boundary wavelength range being entirely within the range over which the etalon scans the wavelengths of light transmitted by the etalon; and

a processor coupled to the image pickup unit that includes a circuit for controlling the operation of the etalon and a circuit for executing arithmetic operations based on image data obtained by the image pickup unit;

said etalon calibration procedure is performed after the insertion end of the endoscope reaches a site of the living tissue to be examined and includes the following steps:

(1) in response to a control signal from the processor, the image pickup unit captures image signals while the etalon scans, at least once, over a range of wavelengths 600-750 nm that entirely include the boundary wavelength range of the optical member;

(2) based on image signals acquired in the step (1), arithmetic operations are executed so as to determine a reference value for the optical path length of the gap of the etalon; and

(3) in response to a control signal from the processor, the optical path length of the gap of the etalon is set to the reference value that was determined in step (2).

2. The etalon calibration procedure as set forth in claim 1 , wherein said steps (1) to (3) are performed immediately before the peak transmittance wavelengths of the etalon are scanned.

3. A method of calibrating an image pickup apparatus of an endoscope having an insertion end that is inserted within a patient in order to diagnose the presence of disease in living tissue, said image pickup apparatus comprising:

an image pickup unit that includes

an objective optical system having multiple optical surfaces for forming an image of an object;

an image pickup element, having an image pickup surface, for converting said image to image signals;

an etalon, which is located between the most object-side optical surface of the objective optical system and the image pickup surface, that has a gap, the optical path length of the gap being controllable for scanning the peak wavelengths of light transmitted by the etalon over a range of wavelengths from 600-750 nm, thereby selecting the wavelengths of the light that reach the image pickup surface;

an optical member that is located between the most object-side surface of the objective optical system and the image pickup surface, said optical member having a first wavelength range in which incident light is reflected, a second wavelength range in which incident light is transmitted, and a boundary wavelength range that is bounded at one end by the first wavelength range and at the other end by the second wavelength range, the boundary wavelength range being entirely within the range over which the etalon scans the peak wavelengths of light transmitted by the etalon; and

a processor coupled to the image pickup unit that includes a circuit for controlling the operation of the etalon and a circuit for executing arithmetic operations based on image data obtained by the image pickup unit;

said method of calibrating including the following steps:

(1) after the insertion end of the endoscope reaches a site of the living tissue to be examined, in response to a control signal from the processor, the image pickup unit captures image signals while the etalon scans, at least once, over a range of peak wavelengths from 600 to 750 nm;

(2) based on image signals acquired in the step (1), arithmetic operations are executed so as to determine a reference value for the optical path length of the gap of the etalon; and

(3) in response to a control signal from the processor, the optical path length of the gap of the etalon is set to the reference value that was determined in step (2).

4. The method of calibrating an image pickup apparatus of an endoscope as set forth in claim 3 , wherein said steps (1) to (3) are performed immediately before the peak transmittance wavelengths of the etalon are scanned.