Patent ID: 8687896

Claim:
A picture image processing apparatus, comprising a candidate detection unit detecting a lateral boundary line candidate and a paint-blank boundary line candidate of a lane mark from picture image information acquired; a verification unit verifying whether said lateral boundary line candidate and said paint-blank boundary line candidate, detected by said candidate detection unit, represent a lateral boundary line and a paint-blank boundary line of said lane mark, respectively; a storage unit storing verification information from a verification unit, as hysteresis information including said lateral boundary line candidate and said paint-blank boundary line candidate, at a time at which said lateral boundary line candidate and said paint-blank boundary line candidate have been verified by said verification unit to be the lateral boundary line and the paint-blank boundary line of said lane mark, respectively; said storage unit also storing car speed information from a car speed detector correlated with said hysteresis information; and an estimation unit estimating, using said hysteresis information and said car speed information, positions of the lateral boundary line and the paint-blank boundary line in a next frame corresponding to picture image information which would be acquired next to current picture image information; wherein said storage unit memorizes the estimation information including the positions of the lateral boundary line and the paint-blank boundary line estimated by said estimation unit; and said verification unit executes verification using the estimation information memorized in said storage unit when verification occurs.