Patent ID: 7027646

Claim:
An apparatus for generating a scaled image, comprising: image dividing means for dividing an image into a plurality of blocks; color-space dividing means for dividing a color space of the image into a plurality of sub spaces; histogram calculation means for performing a histogram calculation, on a per-subspace basis, with regard to pixels constituting a block of interest among the plurality of blocks; merge determination means for, in a case where it is determined that two most frequent subspaces exist and are not contiguous or that three or more most frequent subspaces exist based on a result of the histogram calculation, determining whether an other contiguous subspace can be merged with the most frequent subspaces to form a unified subspace; subspace merging means for, if it is determined by said merge determination means that the other contiguous subspace can be merged, merging the other contiguous subspace with a corresponding most frequent subspace to generate the unified subspace; and calculating means for calculating a most frequent unified subspace by adding up frequencies of subspaces based upon the histogram calculation with regard to the unified subspace generated by said subspace merging means; average obtaining means for obtaining an average color of pixels that belong to the most frequent unified subspace; and color decision means for deciding a representative color of the block of interest in accordance with the average color obtained by said average obtaining means.