Patent ID: 7892168

Claim:
A confocal endoscope system, comprising: an electronic endoscope having a confocal optical unit configured to emit illumination light toward an object and to obtain only light from a certain point of the object; and a processor to which the light obtained by the confocal optical unit is inputted, the processor comprising: an image processing unit that generates image data representing an image of the object based on the light transmitted from the confocal optical unit; a measuring information superimposing unit that generates composite image data representing a composite image generated by superimposing measuring information for measuring the object on the image generated by the image processing unit, the measuring information superimposing unit determining a display condition of the measuring information on the composite image in accordance with an imaging area of the confocal optical unit; and an output control unit that intervenes in image data transmission between the image processing unit and the measuring information superimposing unit to selectively send the image data representing the image generated by the image processing unit, and the confocal endoscope system further comprising: a scale indication setting unit configured to transmit a control signal representing whether the measuring information should be superimposed on the image generated by the image processing unit, and wherein the output control unit sends the image data generated by the image processing unit to the measuring information superimposing unit when the control signal from the scale indication setting unit represents that the measuring information should be superimposed, and outputs the image data generated by the image processing unit directly to a display device without sending the image data generated by the image processing unit to the measuring information superimposing unit when the control signal from the scale indication setting unit represents that the measuring information should not be superimposed.