Patent ID: 7512494

Claim:
An image processor mounted to a vehicle for determining a distance between the vehicle and an object located outside the vehicle, the vehicle including imaging means for capturing images from in front of the vehicle, the image processor comprising: velocity information calculation means for calculating velocity information from images photographed by the imaging means; observation point group specification means operable for specifying, from the velocity information calculated by the velocity information calculation means, a set of observation points at which relative positions of velocity information do not change; pitching detection means configured to detect pitching of the vehicle based on the set specified by the observation point group specification means; and vanishing line calculation means configured to: extract any two points of differing height of an object present in an image as feature points, eliminate the pitching detected by the pitching detection means from the feature points, and calculate the position of a vanishing line based on the velocity ratio of the feature points after the length between the two feature points and pitching are eliminated.