Patent ID: 8715173

Claim:
An otoscanner comprising: an otoscanner body, the body comprising a hand grip, the body having mounted upon it an ear probe, a tracking illumination emitter, a plurality of tracking illumination sensors, and a display screen, the otoscanner body having mounted within it an image sensor; the ear probe comprising a wide-angle lens optically coupled to the image sensor, a laser light source, a conical laser-reflective optical element, a diffractive laser optic lens and a source of non-laser video illumination; the conical laser-reflective optical element and the laser light source configured so that the conical laser-reflecting optical element, when illuminated by the laser light source, projects a broken ring of laser light upon an interior surface of the ear when the ear probe is positioned in the ear; the diffractive laser optic lens and the laser light source configured so that the diffractive laser optic lens, when illuminated by the laser light source, projects upon an interior surface of the ear a fan of laser light at a predetermined angle with respect to a front surface of the diffractive laser optic lens when the ear probe is positioned in the ear; the plurality of tracking illumination sensors disposed upon the otoscanner body so as to sense reflections of tracking illumination emitted from the tracking illumination emitter and reflected from tracking targets configured to be installed at positions that are fixed relative to the scanned ear; the display screen coupled for data communications to the image sensor, the display screen configured for displaying images of the scanned ear, and the image sensor coupled for data communications to a data processor, with the data processor configured to construct, in dependence upon a sequence of images captured when the scanned ear is illuminated by laser light and tracked positions of the ear probe inferred from reflections of tracking illumination sensed by the tracking illumination sensors, a 3D image of the interior of the scanned ear.