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Image processing system and camera

Image processing system and camera description/claims

The present application is a Divisional application of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/486,455 filed Jul. 13, 2006, which is a continuation application of PCT/JP2005/000783 filed on Jan. 21, 2005 and claims benefit of Japanese Application No. 2004-016264 filed in Japan on Jan. 23, 2004, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by this reference.

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an image processing system and camera that acquire a spectroscopic spectral image information on an object, and perform highly accurate color reproduction, examination, and judgment and so forth on an image of the object from the acquired image information.

2. Description of the Related Art

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in health and an increased need for whitening due to the pursuit of beauty. Conventionally, diagnoses using skin diagnosis cameras have been provided in dermatology, esthetic salons, and beauty counseling and so forth. In the case of dermatology in particular, counseling that grasps characteristics from an image of skin grooves and hills and so forth is performed as diagnosis of the skin surface. Further, the abovementioned skin diagnosis camera has been proposed by Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. H8-149352, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. H7-322103 and the like.

On the other hand, with respect to restoration of a dental crown in a dental treatment, conventionally a color grade judgment is performed by means of a comparison with the color of the patient's teeth by means of a shade guide when determining the color of the tooth that is to be restored.

Although accurate color reproduction is determined in each field including dermatology and dentistry as mentioned earlier, the system disclosed by Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-152269 as a conventional highly accurate color reproduction system applies a camera that captures an image of an externally illuminated object by means of a multisprectral. In this system, a multiplicity of rotatable spectroscopic filters are used for a highly accurate estimate of the object spectroscopic spectral and multiple band data are acquired as a result of the rotation of the filters to allow high color reproduction to be implemented.

A variety of other techniques have been proposed as techniques for acquiring spectroscopic images.

A device for capturing a multiband image through time division by using a rotating filter that is constituted of a plurality of optical bandpass filters placed in a row on the circumference appears in Japanese Patent Application No. H9-172649, for example.

Furthermore, a device that easily performs multiband photography by using a filter (comb-shaped filter) that multiply divides a spectroscopic wavelength band appears in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2002-296114.

In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003-087806 mentions a constitution of a multisprectral camera that is capable of photographing images of a multiplicity of bands at the same time by integrating a color filter array of six bands or more with a single-panel CCD.

Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2003-023643 mentions a constitution of a multisprectral camera that is capable of photographing images of six bands by means of 3-panel CCDs by using a half mirror and a dichroic mirror.

For the abovementioned dermatology, dentistry and other fields in which accurate color reproduction is sought, a contribution to examination, confirmation and discrimination and the like is required through strict color reproduction of the paint color of an automobile, the paint color of a building, the spectroscopic characterization of a foodstuff, and the dye of a garment, and so forth, for example. Further, these devices are also required to be small and lightweight and handy for the sake of examination operability.

According to one aspect of the invention, a camera is provided which comprises an illumination light source that illuminates an object, a photography optical system that forms an object image, an image pickup element section that outputs an image signal by picking up the object image formed by the photography optical system, and a photography operation section that selects a desired image capture mode from a plurality of image capture modes that capture an image of the object in a plurality of different aspects. The plurality of image capture modes includes a spectroscopic image mode in which a spectroscopic image of the object is captured, and an ON/OFF operation of the illumination light source is performed when one of the image capture modes other than the spectroscopic image capture mode is selected from among the plurality of image capture modes by the photography operation section.

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