Patent ID: 7835547

Claim:
An image recognition apparatus that compares a local feature at least one sample point in an input image of a body part of a person and a plurality of local features registered in advance to verify the person, the apparatus comprising: an average-image creating unit that creates an average image from a plurality of images in an image group related to the body part; a subspace creating unit that detects sample points on the images in the image group corresponding to sample points set on the average image to create subspaces of feature vectors at the sample points set on the images in the image group; a sample point detecting unit that detects sample points in the input image and registered images based on the subspaces, wherein the sample point detecting unit detects the sample points in the input image and the registered images corresponding to the sample points on the average image based on distance from a feature vector of the input image to the subspace and distances from the feature vectors of the registered images to the subspaces respectively; and a verification determination unit that calculates a degree of similarity between feature vectors at the sample points on the input image and those on the registered images and that verifies the person based on the degree of similarity.