Patent ID: 8194066

Claim:
A cross-sectional image display apparatus that displays a cross-sectional image of a three-dimensional image based on three-dimensional image data representing the three-dimensional image, the apparatus comprising: a storage unit that pre-stores the three-dimensional image data; a display unit for displaying the cross-sectional image; a two-dimensional image presentation unit having a presentation surface that presents a two-dimensional image of the three-dimensional image; a designation unit for designating a cross-sectional position within the three-dimensional image for the cross-sectional image that is to be displayed, in a state in which the three-dimensional image is virtually constructed in a space above the presentation surface such that the constructed three-dimensional image has dimensions, and is located at a position, corresponding to the two-dimensional image presented at the presentation surface; a detection unit that detects the cross-sectional position designated by the designation unit; a conversion unit that converts the cross-sectional position detected by the detection unit into a cross-sectional position in a coordinate system of the three-dimensional image; a cross-sectional image creation unit that creates cross-sectional image data representing the cross-sectional image of the three-dimensional image at the cross-sectional position converted by the conversion unit based on the cross-sectional position and the three-dimensional image data; and a control unit that controls the display unit such that the cross-sectional image data created by the cross-sectional image creation unit is used to display the cross-sectional image.