Patent ID: 8320998

Claim:
A vein imaging apparatus comprising: a lens array including a plurality of light-receiving lenses disposed in an array; a near-infrared light emission source which is arranged at an end of the lens array and emits a near-infrared light to a part of a living body; an imaging element including: a vein image data generation region for generating image data of a vein based on the near-infrared light that was condensed by the lens array and that was scattered in the living body and transmitted through the vein; and a positional displacement detection data generation region that includes a shielding member configured to prevent external light from entering the positional displacement detection data generation region, an illumination light source arranged inside of the shielding member, a shielded section in which pixels are shielded from the illumination light by a shielding film and an opening section in which pixels are not shielded from the illumination light, and generates data for detecting a positional displacement that is used to detect, based on the illumination light received via the opening section, variation in an image focus position according to an imaging temperature, wherein a plurality of pixels are assigned to one of the light-receiving lenses; an image focus position detection unit for detecting a image focus position at imaging temperature based on the data for detecting positional displacement obtained from the positional displacement detection data generation region; a positional displacement amount estimation unit for estimating an amount of displacement of the image focus position at the imaging temperature based on the image focus position detected by the image focus position detection unit; and a pixel selection unit for selecting based on the amount of displacement, a pixel generating the vein image data used to generate vein image from among the plurality of pixels corresponding to one of the light-receiving lenses.