Patent ID: 8019165

Claim:
An image processing apparatus which compresses an image, comprising: a storage unit which stores a code book, the code book being prepared by allocating identification codes to code blocks, the code blocks being formed by executing quantization processing regarding a plurality of first image blocks as multidimensional vectors, the plurality of first image blocks being generated by cutting, in preset sizes, first regions out of a code book preparation image containing a first edge, each of the first regions surrounding and including an edge point of the first edge, the first edge being detected from the code book preparation image; an edge detection unit which detects a second edge from a compression target image containing the second edge; an image block generation unit which cuts, in preset sizes, second regions out of the compression target image to generate a plurality of second image blocks, each of the second regions surrounding and including an edge point of the detected second edge; a search unit which searches the code book stored in the storage unit for code blocks similar to the second image blocks; and an output unit which outputs information on the identification codes of the similar code blocks which have been searched for and information on coordinates of the edge points of the second image blocks.