Patent ID: 8660354

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a memory; an obtaining unit that obtains image data showing an image including concatenated pixels; an identifying unit that identifies a rendering element, the rendering element being an area surrounded by border lines of a color in the image shown by the image data; a specifying unit that specifies a first condition from among a plurality of conditions for classifying the rendering element; and a classifying unit that, in a case where a plurality of rendering elements has been identified by the identifying unit, classifies each rendering element that meets the first condition specified by the specifying unit into a single group or a plurality of groups, associates pieces of image data that show rendering elements belonging to one group with one another, and stores the pieces of image data in the memory, and classifies the rendering elements that belong to the groups and that meet a second condition that is different from the first condition specified by the specifying unit into a single group or a plurality of groups, associates pieces of image data that represent rendering elements belonging to one group with one another, and stores the pieces of image data in the memory, wherein the plurality of conditions includes a condition regarding a distance between rendering elements within an image, and wherein the value of the distance changes in response to a color of the rendering element or a contrast between a first color of the rendering element and a second color of a pixel that is adjacent to the rendering element, wherein in a case where the condition regarding the distance has been specified by the specifying unit, and the distance between two rendering elements is less than a threshold, the classifying unit classifies the two rendering elements into one group, and the threshold changes in response to the color of the contrast.