Patent ID: 8373777

Claim:
An image processing apparatus that performs a noise reduction processing on images inputted sequentially, the apparatus comprising: a pixel extracting section which extracts a plurality of pixels in a first region including a target pixel in a target image and a plurality of pixels in a second region including a pixel located at a same spatial position as the target pixel in an image previous to the target image; a motion vector calculating section which calculates a motion vector of the first region with respect to the previous image based on part or all of the pixels in the first region and part of the pixels in the second region; a filter coefficient determining section which determines filter coefficients for the plurality of pixels in the second region based on the motion vector; and a noise reducing section which reduces noise in the target pixel based on the plurality of pixels in the second region and the filter coefficients; wherein the filter coefficient determining section includes: a maximum weight position determining section which determines a maximum weight position pointed to by the motion vector with respect to the position of the target pixel as an initial point of the motion vector; and a spatial distance weighting factor determining section which determines spatial distance weighting factors for at least the pixels in the second region based on spatial distances from the maximum weight position.