Patent ID: 8876717

Claim:
A subject information acquisition apparatus comprising: a subject holding member configured to hold a subject; a probe having a plurality of transformation elements and configured to receive an acoustic wave emitted from the subject through the subject holding member, and to convert the acoustic wave into electric signals; a processing section configured to generate first image data using the electric signals, and a sound-velocity measurement section configured to obtain a sound velocity of the acoustic wave in the subject, wherein the sound-velocity measurement section obtains the sound velocity in the subject by using a time from when an ultrasound wave is transmitted from the probe to when a reflected ultrasound wave is received, a thickness of the subject in which the ultrasound wave transmitted from the probe propagates, a sound velocity in the subject holding member, and thickness of the subject holding member, wherein the processing section has a correction table or a correction formula based on the sound velocity obtained by the sound-velocity measurement section and the sound velocity in the subject holding member, for performing correction of refraction of the acoustic wave that has occurred due to a difference between the sound velocity in the subject and the sound velocity in the subject holding member, wherein the processing section corrects information regarding image element location of the first image data by shifting the image element location of the first image data in accordance with an amount of transformation in position of individual image elements caused by refraction of the acoustic wave, based on the correction table or the correction formula, and wherein the processing section obtains second image data in accordance with the shifted image element location of the first image data.