Patent ID: 11857151
Assignee: STERIS INSTRUMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC.
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  G  H | IPC A  G  H

Claim 8:
9. A method of evaluating of an objective of an endoscope, the method comprising:
forming an image of a target with an endoscope objective, wherein the objective is apart from the endoscope, the formed image including a curved focal plane;
relaying the formed image onto a camera of an image capture system, wherein the relayed formed image includes the curved focal plane,
acquiring with the image capture system, a plurality of intermediate images from the formed image at a plurality of positions along an optical axis of the objective, wherein each intermediate image of the plurality of intermediate images corresponds to a different image plane with respect to the optical axis taken from the curved focal plane;
providing, by the image capture system, the plurality of intermediate images to an image processing system;
extracting, by the image processing system, at least one portion from each intermediate image of the plurality of intermediate images;
assembling, by the image processing system, the extracted portions from the plurality of intermediate images to form a final image that corresponds to the formed image from the objective;
evaluating the final image to determine acceptability of the objective; and
rejecting the objective when the image processing system determines that the final image is not acceptable and thereafter repairing the objective.