Patent ID: 8204336

Claim:
An image processing device which removes noise from an input image by adding the input image to a reference image, said image processing device comprising: a motion estimation unit configured to detect a motion between the input image and the reference image, and to generate motion information for each of blocks of the input image; a motion compensation unit configured to perform motion compensation on each of blocks of the reference image using the motion information generated by said motion estimation unit, so as to generate a motion-compensated reference image; a block distortion amount calculation unit configured to calculate a block distortion amount for each of blocks of the motion-compensated reference image generated by said motion compensation unit; an addition ratio calculation unit configured to calculate an addition ratio of a block of the motion-compensated reference image so that the addition ratio decreases as the block distortion amount calculated by said block distortion amount calculation unit increases, the block of the motion-compensated reference image corresponding to the block distortion amount; and an addition unit configured to perform weighted sum on a pixel value of the block of the motion-compensated reference image and a pixel value of a block of the input image, using the addition ratio calculated by said addition ratio calculation unit, the block of the input image corresponding to the block of the motion-compensated reference image; wherein said block distortion amount calculation unit is configured to calculate the block distortion amount for the block of the motion-compensated reference image, using a difference in pixel value between neighboring pixels across a boundary between the blocks of the motion-compensated reference image.