1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an optical observation apparatus, in particular a surgical microscope comprising a superimposition device for superimposing the optical image with an insertion image. In addition, the invention relates to a method for the insertion of electronic insertion images into an optical observation apparatus, in particular into a surgical microscope.
2. Description of the Related Art
Insertion images are inserted in particular into the beam path of surgical microscopes in order to convey additional treatment-relevant information to the treating physician. Insertion images can be e.g. the result of a contour finder, a reference axis, a reference angle, apparatus parameters such as, for instance, the magnification factor or the diaphragm aperture, or patient-related data.
The published US patent application US 2003181803 discloses a surgical microscope having an electronic unit and a superimposition module. In this case, patient data are communicated from the electronic unit to the superimposition module, which inserts the data into the surgeon's field of view.
Furthermore, surgical microscopes comprising a camera device are known which detect the surgeon's field of view by virtue of there being arranged in the beam path of the microscope a beam splitter or a similar image coupling-out device that forwards the field of view to a video camera for acquiring the video images.
Such a system, which simultaneously permits the insertion of patient data, is presented in US patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 7,050,225 B2. In this case, what is inherent to this solution is that the image acquired by the video camera always shows the overall representation such as corresponds to the actual field of view of the surgeon, that is to say with all the patient data inserted by the superimposition module.
The published German patent application DE 102 43 852 A1 discloses a further microscopy system, which enables a stereomicroscopic image to be superimposed with an electronically generated image, wherein the electronically generated image is an electronic superimposition of an input image dependent on the chosen magnification or the rotational position of the zoom system with an input image that is independent of the chosen magnification or the rotational position of the zoom system.
DE 101 01 184 A1 describes a surgical microscope comprising an observation tube and a camera for recording the observation image. A monitor for representing the recorded observation image is additionally present. In the surgical microscope, an electronic insertion image can both be inserted into the beam path by means of an image projection module and be mixed with the image recorded by the camera by means of an image mixer and the mixed image can be represented on the monitor.
Against the background of this prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an advantageous optical observation apparatus, in particular an advantageous surgical microscope. It is a further object of the present invention to provide an advantageous method for the insertion of electronic insertion images into an optical observation apparatus, in particular into a surgical microscope.