Patent Document ID: 20110216196
Application ID: 13038567
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A visibility support apparatus comprising: a light source unit configured to illuminate an object with light in one of a plurality of wavelength bands with different peak wavelengths while switching among the wavelength bands; a light receiving unit configured to receive reflected light from the object to generate a signal for an image for each of the plurality of wavelength bands; a wavelength selecting unit configured to compare signal intensities of pixels with each other in at least one image and set a set of those of pixels with comparable signal intensities which define the largest occupied area to be a reference area and to set the pixels not included in the reference area to be identification target pixels, and for each of the identification target pixels, compare a value of the pixel in the image for each wavelength band with a pixel value of the reference area to select at least two wavelength bands which are effective for detection of the object; and a display unit configured to group the identification target pixels based on a combination of a plurality of wavelength bands selected by the wavelength selecting unit for each identification target pixel and display an image in which the object is distinguishably shown based on the result of the grouping.