Patent ID: 8698886
Filing Date: 2014-04-15
Classification: A61B,H04N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for estimating a shape of an insertion portion comprising: an insertion portion configured to be transformed; an acceleration calculation unit configured to calculate acceleration at each of a plurality of measurement points set in the insertion portion; a determination unit configured to determine whether the measurement points move, based on the acceleration calculated by the acceleration calculation unit; an attitude information calculation unit configured to calculate first attitude information of each of the measurement points in a resting state before a movement period when the determination unit determines that the measurement points moves and second attitude information of each of the measurement points in a resting state after the movement period; an attitude estimation unit configured to estimate a movement period attitude which is an attitude of each of the measurement points during the movement period, based on the first attitude information and the second attitude information calculated by the attitude information calculation unit; a movement vector calculation unit configured to correct the acceleration during the movement period calculated by the acceleration calculation unit, based on the movement period attitude of the measurement points estimated by the attitude estimation unit and to calculate a movement vector which indicates a movement direction and a movement amount of each of the measurement points during the movement period, based on the corrected acceleration; a position calculation unit configured to calculate a position of each of the measurement points based on the first attitude information or the second attitude information of the measurement points calculated by the attitude information calculation unit; and an image generation unit configured to generate and to output a display image expressing the position of each of the measurement points calculated by the position calculation unit and the movement vector calculated by the movement vector calculation unit.