Patent Document ID: 8126250
Application ID: 11477802
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. An image acquiring apparatus comprising: a sample storage unit for storing a plurality of samples; macro image acquiring means for acquiring a macro image of each of the plurality of samples; micro image acquiring means for acquiring a micro image while scanning each of the plurality of samples with higher resolution than that of the macro image; a sample moving unit for moving each of the plurality of samples among a storage position in the sample storage unit, a macro image acquiring position for the macro image acquiring means, and a micro image acquiring position for the micro image acquiring means; and control means including macro image acquisition control means for controlling an operation to acquire the macro image by the macro image acquiring means, image pickup condition setting means for setting an image pickup condition for the micro image with reference to the macro image, and micro image acquisition control means for controlling an operation to acquire the micro image by the micro image acquiring means; wherein each of the plurality of samples is a sample slide containing a biological sample, and wherein the control means has a semi-automatic mode serving as a control mode, and wherein, in the semi-automatic mode, the macro image acquisition control means performs control to move a first sample of the plurality of samples from the storage position to the macro image acquiring position by the sample moving unit so as to acquire the macro image at the macro image acquiring position, and then performs control to move the first sample of the plurality of samples to the storage position by the sample moving unit; the image pickup condition setting means sets the image pickup condition of the first sample of the plurality of samples for the micro image in parallel with acquiring of the macro image of a second sample of the plurality of samples and while allowing an operator to confirm the macro image and the corresponding image pickup condition with respect to the first sample the macro image of which has been acquired; and the micro image acquisition control means performs control to move the first sample of the plurality of samples for which the image pickup condition has been set from the storage position to the micro image acquiring position by the sample moving unit, and performs control to acquire the micro image of the first sample of the plurality of samples at the micro image acquiring position with reference to the image pickup condition in parallel with setting the image pickup condition of a sample other than the first sample of the plurality of samples, and wherein the sample storage unit is provided separately from the macro image acquiring means and the micro image acquiring means; and the storage position, which is a position different from the macro image acquiring position and the micro image acquiring position, is set in the sample storage unit.