Patent attributes
A three-dimensional information obtaining apparatus includes an illumination optical system that illuminates a sample with a light sheet, an imaging device that has a two-dimensional imaging element and that captures an image of the sample illuminated by the illumination optical system, an observation optical system that forms, on the two-dimensional imaging element, a plurality of optical images of the sample observed from a plurality of different directions, and an arithmetic device that calculates three-dimensional information of the sample from a plurality of pieces of image data of the sample. A thickness D of the light sheet satisfies D≤8·PP/β/NA when PP>λ·β/(4·NA) is satisfied, where PP is a pixel pitch of the two-dimensional imaging element, λ is a wavelength of observation light, β is a magnification of the plurality of optical images, and NA is a numerical aperture on an object side of the observation optical system.