Patent ID: 8265374

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for acquiring and transforming first plane image data representing a space having a depth, the image processing apparatus comprising: means for estimating a vanishing point based on an imaged subject of the first plane image data, wherein the vanishing point is a point in the image data at which, when parallel lines in a three-dimensional space based on objects already contained in the image data are projected onto an image plane by perspective transformation, straight lines on the image plane which correspond to the parallel lines converge; means for estimating an angle of view of the first plane image data; and means for generating second plane image data corresponding to the first plane image data projected onto a portion corresponding to the estimated angle of view of a curved surface of a cylinder having a predetermined radius, based on the vanishing point, the angle of view, and a reference point, a position of the reference point being at a center of the cylinder and at a height equal to the estimated vanishing point, wherein the means for estimating a vanishing point further comprises depth-direction parallel-line extracting means for extracting perspective lines from the imaged subject of the first plane image data, and vanishing point calculating means for calculating the vanishing point based on the perspective lines.