Patent ID: 11857165
Assignee: OLYMPUS WINTER & IBE GMBH
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  G  H | IPC A  G  H

Claim 14:
15. An endoscopic imaging system comprising:
a video endoscope having at least one CMOS image sensor;
a light source configured to generate white light and at least one special light other than the white light; and
a controller connected to the light source and to the at least one CMOS image sensor, the controller being configured to:
capture white light images with the video endoscope under white light illumination in a white light imaging mode;
evaluate the white light images captured in the white light imaging mode in real time to detect whether at least one structure having at least one predefined characteristic is present in the white light images captured in the white light imaging mode,
when the presence of the at least one structure having the at least one predefined characteristic is detected in at least one white light image, of the evaluated white light images, switch from the white light imaging mode to a special light imaging mode in which the light source generates special light illumination other than white light imaging using the at least one special light and one or more images of a video stream are captured under the special light illumination and subjected to image processing in the special light processing mode;
identify a subregion of the at least one white light image that contains the detected at least one structure with the predefined characteristic and reading out only a corresponding subregion of the image sensor, and
processing the image data read out from the corresponding subregion as one or more special light images.