Patent ID: 8531911

Claim:
An ultrasonic observation apparatus that transmits ultrasonic sound waves to a specimen and receives ultrasonic sound waves reflected from the specimen, the ultrasonic observation apparatus comprising: a frequency analyzing unit that analyzes frequencies of the received ultrasonic sound waves and calculates a frequency spectrum; a feature data extracting unit that performs approximation with respect to the frequency spectrum calculated by the frequency analyzing unit and extracts a plurality of sets of feature data of the frequency spectrum; and a display parameter assigning unit that, in a feature data space including a first coordinate system that contains at least some of sets of feature data being respectively extracted for known specimens as its coordinate components, calculates coordinate values of the feature data of the specimen in a second coordinate system and assigns display parameters corresponding to the calculated coordinate values, the second coordinate system having a new coordinate axis as one of its coordinate axes, the new coordinate axis being an axis on which sum of distances between adjacent representative points is large, the representative points representing respective groups obtained by classifying the known specimens on the basis of information regarding each known specimen, the distances being obtained when the adjacent representative points, which are adjacent along a predetermined coordinate axis in the first coordinate system, are projected on a predetermined axis.