ELECTRONIC ENDOSCOPY USING DUAL POLARIZING FILTERS TO REDUCE THE SPECULAR COMPONENT

Use of dual polarizing filters in endoscopic diagnosis has been propos ed for reducing specular component of the light reflected from gastroi ntestinal surface. Experimental results demonstrate that the presented electronic endoscope incorporating dual polarizing filters have the f ollowing advantages; (1) the colorimetry in mucous membrane region of interest becomes more stable and accurate, (2) the internal features b eneath gastrointestinal surface are successfully enhanced, (3) the mat ching operation carried out on stereo-pair images becomes more precise . It is also shown experimentally that the increase of noise due to po larizing filters is negligible.