Patent attributes
The present disclosure pertains to an apparatus and methods of an imaging device for obtaining images from the walls of luminal organs or a surgical cavity. The device is capable of passage through luminal organs or introduction into surgical cavities, and obtains images by rapidly scanning a focused light beam on the tissue to be imaged and receiving light from the tissue. The device comprises at least one mechanism for projecting a 2-dimensional (2-D) optical pattern, such as a 2-D scanner (508) or a 2-D optical array forming a closed loop scan pattern (506). The device comprises at least one other beam scanning mechanism, such as a rotary or angular scanner (510) such that cycloid scan pattern is formed on the surface to be scanned, and also has embodiments of focusing optics at different regimes of numerical aperture. The disclosure also describes methods for accurate image reconstruction with embodiments of hardware control and post-acquisition processing.
