Patent ID: 8364246

Claim:
An imaging system for imaging a region of interest, comprising: an imaging light source providing an imaging light beam including light in a first range of the electromagnetic spectrum, an incident portion of said imaging light beam being suitable for optical interaction with an underlying feature of said region of interest and suitable to provide a return portion of said imaging light beam following an optical interaction of said imaging light beam with said underlying feature; a detector configured to detect a magnitude of a characteristic of said return portion of said imaging light beam and configured to provide an output signal corresponding to said magnitude; a display light source providing a display light beam including light in a second range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the display light beam configured to project and image onto a surface of said region of interest; a controller configured to receive the output signal from said detector and provide a control signal to control a characteristic of said display light beam; a scanner configured to spatially scan said imaging and display light beams across said region of interest; and an optical assembly configured to redirect said imaging light beam and said display light beam from their respective sources onto said region of interest and to redirect said portion of said imaging light beam from said region of interest onto said detector, said optical assembly further comprising optical components including a light collector disposed and designed to collect only a selected portion of said return portion of light returned by said region of interest and being substantially returned along a direction substantially co-linear with a direction of said incident imaging beam.