Patent ID: 7369759

Claim:
An eye image pickup apparatus comprising: a camera having a lens for obtaining an eye image; a display unit located on a same plane as the position where the lens of the camera is arranged; and a guide character generator for generating a guide character and allow the guide character to be displayed on the display unit to guide a position of the user's eye, wherein the guide character is displayed by being superimposed on the eye image obtained by the camera, wherein the guide character includes four arrow characters which are respectively disposed in an upward direction, a downward direction, a left direction and a right direction from a center of an image displayed on the display unit, and wherein the four arrow characters indicate on the image displayed on the display unit directions in which the user's eye should be moved, said directions including a forward direction, a backward direction and eight radially symmetrical directions that are perpendicular to the forward direction and the backward direction, wherein the eight radially symmetrical directions are the upward direction, the downward direction, the left direction, the right direction, a left upward direction, a right upward direction, a left downward direction and a right downward direction.