IMAGE ACQUISITION WITH DEPTH ENHANCEMENT

摘要

A minimally invasive, medical, image acquisitions system outputs a light beam (30, 32) or pulse which illuminates a precise spot size. A plurality of photon detectors (14) detect returning photons (44) from the object, including the spot. Pixel resolution is determined by the area of the illumination spot (and thus the lens configuration), rather than an area sensed by the detector. Depth enhancement is determined by correlating images detected by the respective detectors, or alternatively by a range finding method based on phase difference, time of light, frequency or interferometry.