PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image generation apparatus and an image generation method which can reconstruct an image showing information of a subjects interior, whose noise and image quality deterioration caused by inconsistency between a speed used in image reconstruction and an actual transmission speed are suppressed.SOLUTION: An image generation apparatus comprises determination means which sets an attention region in a portion of a subject, adjusts a phase of each detection signal based on a distance from each detection element to the attention region and an assumptive speed, executes processing to a plurality of assumptive speeds for calculating a variance in the intensity of a plurality of detection signals whose phase has been adjusted, and determines a speed as a transmission speed, whose variance in the intensity is the smallest among the plurality of assumptive speeds.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1COPYRIGHT: (C)2017,JPO&INPIT【課題】ノイズおよび画像再構成時に用いた速度と実際の伝播速度との不一致による画質劣化が抑制された、被検体内部の情報を表す画像を再構成することのできる画像生成装置及び画像生成方法を提供する。【解決手段】本発明の画像生成装置は、被検体内の一部分に注目領域を設定し、各検出素子から注目領域までの距離と、仮定の速度とに基づいて各検出信号の位相を調整し、該位相が調整された複数の検出信号の強度のばらつきを算出する処理を、複数の仮定の速度に対して実行し、複数の仮定の速度のうち、強度のばらつきが最小となる速度を伝播速度に決定する決定手段を有することを特徴とする。【選択図】図1
