Patent ID: 8911357

Claim:
An optical structure observation apparatus, which acquires a plurality of pieces of optical structure information of a measured object obtained by scanning a scan surface constituted of a first direction, which is a depth direction of the measured object having a layer structure at least including a surface layer and a middle layer, and a second direction orthogonal to the first direction, by using a low coherence light, while shifting a position along a third direction which is a direction orthogonal to the scan surface, and constructs an optical stereoscopic structure image based on a plurality of pieces of the optical structure information which are acquired, comprising: a probe which obtains the plurality of pieces of optical structure information and comprises an optical fiber configured to be rotated in a direction of a circumferential direction of the probe and be moved in a longitudinal direction of the probe; a middle layer extracting device which extracts the desired middle layer in the measured object from the plurality of pieces of optical structure information configuring the optical stereoscopic structure image; a layer flattening device which flattens the middle layer extracted by the middle layer extracting device to be a same flat plane; a structure image converting device which reconstructs the optical stereoscopic structure image with the flattened middle layer as a reference layer, and generates a three-dimensional converted optical structure image; and a display control device which images and outputs at least the three-dimensional converted optical structure image.