Optics: eye examining – vision testing and correcting – Eye examining or testing instrument – Objective type
Patent
1999-05-17
2000-07-04
Manuel, George
Optics: eye examining, vision testing and correcting
Eye examining or testing instrument
Objective type
A61B 314
Patent
active
060828595
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of Use in the Industry
The present invention relates to an improvement of a photographic instrument for ophthalmology for photographing various portions of an eye to be examined, such as its fundus, corneal endothelium, and cornea cross section.
2. Prior Art
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology for photographing various portions of an eye to be examined, such as its fundus, corneal endothelium and cornea cross section has heretofore been known. In a photographic instrument for ophthalmology of this type, e.g., a fundus camera for photographing the fundus of the eye, a portion of the fundus to be photographed, as a part of the entire fundus, is displayed on a monitor screen as an alignment image, and then the portion is photographed. After that, the photographed portion is recorded in, for example, a still video recorder as a recording means.
In the fundus photography of this type, sometimes performed is a so-called "panoramic photography" in which different portions of a fundus are photographed, respectively, to obtain a plurality of photographed portions, thereby obtaining the entire image of the fundus.
In the panoramic photography of this type, a plurality of photographs with a low magnification are taken. Since an examiner chooses eye fixation by his own will and photographs the portions of the fundus to be photographed, some portions may fail to be photographed. Also, if a plurality of photographed portions are recorded and preserved separately, it is not easy to find later which photographed portion represents which portion of the entire fundus. Therefore, the panoramic photography is inconvenient for the prompt diagnosis and image analysis with the aid of the photographed images. Under the circumstances, it is desirable in term of the picture image supervision to recognize the different photographed sites of the fundus together with their mutual relations.
The object of the present invention, which has been achieved in view of the situation described above, is to provide a photographic instrument for ophthalmology capable of easily recognizing which portion of an eye to be examined each of the positions of portions to be photographed and photographed portions corresponds to.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 1 comprises display means for displaying portions to be photographed each as a part of an entire of an eye to be examined as alignment images together with a recognition pattern for recognizing positions of the portions to be photographed relative to the entire of the eye to be examined when the eye to be examined is photographed.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 2 is characterized in that a plurality of combinations of numbers and sites of the portions are previously stored in memory means of the photographic instrument for ophthalmology and the numbers and sites can be arbitrarily selected from among the stored combinations.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 3 is characterized in that the recognition pattern is displayed so that a portion that has been photographed can be distinguished from a portion that has not been photographed yet.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 4 is characterized in that a portion that is to be photographed in a next step is displayed in the recognition pattern.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 5 is characterized in that the recognition pattern is displayed as another pattern when the same portion is photographed again.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 6 is characterized in that the recognition pattern displays a number of photographs to make it possible to know the number of photographs of a portion that has been photographed.
A photographic instrument for ophthalmology as defined in claim 7 comprises display means for displaying a recognition pattern for permitting a position of a photographed portion to be recognized relative to the
REFERENCES:
patent: 5159361 (1992-10-01), Cambier et al.
patent: 5784162 (1992-10-01), Cabib et al.
Kato Takeyuki
Ohtsuka Hiroyuki
Okashita Toshihiro
Kabushiki Kaisha Topcon
Manuel George
LandOfFree
Ophthalmological photographing apparatus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Ophthalmological photographing apparatus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Ophthalmological photographing apparatus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1480097