Patent ID: 8155443

Claim:
An image extracting apparatus comprising: an image acquiring section that acquires a scan image obtained by scanning an object; a detecting section that generates a binary image of the acquired scan image and detects connected pixels in the generated binary image; a circumscribed rectangle setting section that sets up a circumscribed rectangle for the connected pixels detected by the detecting section; an edge pixel detecting section that, in each side of the circumscribed rectangle, performs a scan in a direction perpendicular to a side of the circumscribed rectangle so as to detect edge pixels, wherein the scan starts at a plurality of points on a line, and the line extends to one vertex of the circumscribed rectangle from a contacting point at which the connected pixels and the side of the circumscribed rectangle contact; a determining section that determines whether the edge pixels detected by the edge pixel detecting section are located in a contour part of the object reproduced in the scan image; a rectangular region setting section that sets up a rectangular region based on the edge pixels determined as being located in the contour part of the object; and an image extracting section that extracts an image from the rectangular region set up by the rectangular region setting section.