Patent ID: 7873197

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: a center line determination section which determines a center line of a tubular tissue based on volume data containing the tubular tissue; a direction vector determination section which determines a direction vector; a curved surface determination section which determines a curved surface formed by a set of plural lines, each of the plural lines passing through an arbitrary point on the center line and being parallel with the direction vector; a visualizing section which visualizes the tubular tissue based on the volume data on the curved surface; and a tangent vector determination section which determines a tangent vector of the center line at a set point on the center line, wherein the direction vector determination section rotates the direction vector such that an angle formed between the direction vector and the tangent vector is maintained, in response to an operation of changing a display angle of the tubular tissue with the set point as a center, and the rotated direction vector will be a new direction vector, wherein the curved surface determination section determines a new curved surface formed by a set of plural lines, each of the plural lines passing through an arbitrary point on the center line and being parallel with the new direction vector, and wherein the visualizing section visualizes the tubular tissue based on the volume data on the new curved surface.