ENDOSCOPIC IMAGE ENHANCEMENT USING CONTRAST LIMITED ADAPTIVE HISTOGRAM EQUALIZATION (CLAHE) IMPLEMENTED IN A PROCESSOR

The present invention discloses an endoscope system comprising: an endoscope including a first viewing element; and a control unit operatively coupled to the endoscope by a cable, wherein the control unit comprises: a base board module; one or more processing boards that implement a contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) algorithm to enhance images obtained by the first viewing element, wherein the one or more processing boards perform the steps of: receiving a first video stream from the first viewing element, building first histogram information based on a first portion of the first video stream, building second histogram information based on a second portion of the first video stream, converting the first histogram information into first cumulative distribution function values including applying a first clipping threshold to the first histogram information, converting the second histogram information into second cumulative distribution function values including applying a second clipping threshold to the second histogram information, wherein the second clipping threshold is different from the first clipping threshold, obtaining a first plurality of frames from the first video stream, rearranging the first plurality of frames to generate a plurality of first delayed video streams, generating a first enhanced video stream based on the plurality of first delayed video streams, the first cumulative distribution function values, and the second cumulative distribution function values, and sending an output video stream indicative of the first enhanced video stream to a display.