Patent ID: 7878971

Claim:
An endoscope inserting direction detecting method comprising: a first step of receiving endoscopic images time-sequentially; a second step of sampling pixels representing low densities from pixels of each of the endoscopic images which are time-sequentially received in the first step; a third step of determining whether or not number of pixels representing low densities which are sampled in the second step is equal to or larger than predetermined number of pixels; a fourth step of, if the number of pixels representing low densities is determined to be equal to or larger than the predetermined number of pixels in the third step, obtaining a position of barycenter of the pixels representing low densities and, based on a change in the position of the barycenter of the pixels representing low densities of the time-sequentially received endoscopic images, detecting the direction of a shift in the time-sequentially received plurality of endoscopic images; and a fifth step of determining an endoscope inserting direction, in which an endoscope should be inserted, on the basis of the result of the detection performed in the fourth step.