Patent ID: 8368768

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: a straight edge detection section that detects a straight edge of an object in at least one of first and second original images obtained by capturing the identical object from two different viewpoints; a first morphing processing section that performs a first morphing process, in which a parallelization process is not performed on the first and second original images, on the first and second original images to generate a first intermediate image seen from a virtual viewpoint between the two viewpoints; a distortion determination section that determines whether or not an edge of the object in the first intermediate image that corresponds to the straight edge detected by the straight edge detection section is distorted; and a second morphing processing section that, if the edge is distorted, performs a second morphing process, in which a parallelization process is performed on the first and second original images, on the first and second original images to generate a second intermediate image seen from the virtual viewpoint, wherein the straight edge detection section binarizes the at least one of the original images and performs expansion and contraction processes on the binarized image to detect the straight edge from the image that has been subjected to the expansion and contraction processes using a Hough transform.