Patent ID: 8842908

Claim:
A method of separating a front view and a background of an image, the method comprising: dividing with a processor one or more pixels included in a photographed image into pixel groups according to color similarity between the pixels; estimating the position of the front view in the image divided into the pixel groups; and separating the front view and the background based on the estimated position of the front view, wherein the estimating of the position of the front view in the image divided into the pixel groups includes: detecting edges between the pixel groups from the image divided into the pixel groups and generating an edge image, detecting nodes where two or more edges meet from the generated edge image, calculating a circular score indicating similarity between a start node and other nodes in a circular path that starts from any one of the nodes, passes through the edges and the other nodes and arrives at the start node, and estimating a circular center having a highest circular score among the calculated circular scores as the center position of the front view.