Patent ID: 6937268

Claim:
An endoscope system having an imaging unit that images an object of observation while viewing it from a plurality of viewing points, performing image processing and arithmetic operations on image signals that represent images that the imaging unit picks up while viewing the object of observation from the viewing points, and thus achieving stereo measurement, said endoscope system comprising: a corrected image producing means for adopting one of the images, which are picked up by viewing the object of observation from the plurality of viewing points, as a reference image, regarding the other image as a comparison image, correcting optical distortions in the reference image and comparison image, and thus producing a corrected reference image and a corrected comparison image; an image displaying means for displaying on a screen at least the reference image or corrected reference image; a cutting-plane reference line designating means for use in drawing a cutting-plane reference line, which specifies a cutting-plane position that determines a section of the object of observation whose section information is desired to be acquired, in the image displayed on the screen; a corresponding point searching means for regarding a point, which lies on the cutting-plane reference line in the corrected reference image, as a point of attention, and searching the corrected comparison image for a corresponding point that is associated with the point of attention; a section information arithmetic means for calculating three coordinates, which represent a point in three-dimensional space whose mapping results in a corresponding point on the cutting-plane reference line according to the principles of trigonometric measurement, using the position of the point of attention in the corrected reference image and the position of the corresponding point in the corrected comparison image for acquiring section information concerning a section of the object of observation determined with the cutting-plane position; and a section information outputting means for providing section information according to the coordinates calculated by said section information arithmetic means.