Patent ID: 6906708

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for generating an image of a virtual space according to a user's operation using ray space data comprising: a recording unit adapted to record the ray space data; an inputting unit adapted to input a user's operation of movement in the virtual space; a setting unit adapted to set a sampling rate for the ray space data read out from said recording unit according to the user's operation, the sampling rate indicating a distance between pixels to be sampled; a reconstructing unit adapted to read out ray space data from said recording unit according to the sampling rate set by said setting unit, and to reconstruct an image of the virtual space, the read out ray space data being arranged on a line in the ray space, and being on the line at an interval in accordance with the sampling rate; and an interpolation unit adapted to interpolate pixels of the image reconstructed by said reconstructing unit until the size of the image becomes a predetermined size, wherein the ray space data is managed in a (x,u) space, wherein “x” represents a position where the light ray intersects the X-axis and “u” represents a tangent of an angle the light ray makes with the Z-axis, and the ray space data read out by said reconstructing unit is data discretely sampled on a line in a ray space according to the sampling rate set by said setting unit.