To automatically read meters in various forms.

A cover 12 is put on the meters M1 to M3, display surfaces of the meters are illuminated by a ring light 14 and images of the display surfaces are picked up by a CCD camera 13. And a meter image signal is fetched in a mobile computer 2, a reference meter image pattern approximated to a meter image is extracted by performing pattern matching between it and various reference meter image patterns which are registered in a pattern data base 21 and a corresponding area is cut off as an indication area from the read meter image by referring to the indication area in the extracted reference meter image pattern in a meter pattern setting part 24. And a meter indication value is read by performing an image processing of the indication area by a meter value reading part 25 and stored in a read value data base 26.