Patent ID: 8564592

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: a unit which extracts an area of an object, as an object area, from an image; a division unit which divides the object area into a plurality of meshes and calculates, for each of the respective meshes, position information, gradient information, and color information for each vertex of the mesh; a decision unit which decides unnecessary vertices based on a difference between color information of the respective meshes and color information in areas, in the object area, corresponding to the respective meshes; and a calculation unit which sets, as necessary vertices, vertices other than the unnecessary vertices, and decides position information, gradient information, and color information of the necessary vertices by performing iterative calculations to change the position information, gradient information, and color information of the necessary vertices so as to minimize a difference between color information of meshes defined by the unnecessary vertices and color information of areas, in the object area, corresponding to the meshes defined by the unnecessary vertices, wherein said division unit includes: a unit which calculates a center position of the object area, a unit which sets, in the object area, two axes that pass through the center position and are perpendicular to each other, thereby dividing the object area into four divided regions by the two axes, a unit which sets representative points on boundaries in the respective divided regions to maximize a distance between two representative points on each pair of opposite divided regions, a unit which calculates a curve connecting adjacent representative points for each pair of the adjacent representative points, thereby obtaining four curves, a unit which calculates a surface, using the four curves, for a region surrounded by the four curves, and a unit which samples points on the surface two-dimensionally in axial directions of two axes defined by the surface to divide the object area into meshes each defined by four points and calculate, for each of the respective meshes, position information, gradient information, and color information for each vertex of the mesh.