Patent ID: 7508988

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising: a receiving mechanism configured to receive a request, from at least one different image processing apparatus connected with the image processing apparatus via a network, for transmission of a codestream generated in a way such that image data is divided into at least one region and each region is hierarchically compressed and stored in the image processing apparatus; a decomposing mechanism configured to decompose the codestream and to retrieve the codestream in a component unit; an extracting mechanism configured to extract a target region from the codestream; a primary priority assigning mechanism configured to assign priority to the target region extracted by the extracting mechanism; a primary transmitting mechanism configured for transmission of the codestream, decomposed in a component unit corresponding to the target region, to the at least one different image processing apparatus requesting transmission of the codestream based on the priority assigned by the primary priority assigning mechanism; a primary decoding mechanism configured to decode the codestream of the target region having a high priority assigned by the primary priority assigning mechanism; an image processing mechanism configured to perform an image processing operation with respect to the image data decoded by the primary decoding mechanism; and a primary encoding mechanism configured to hierarchically encode the image data processed by the image processing mechanism, wherein the primary transmitting mechanism transmits the codestream, decomposed in a component unit corresponding to the target region encoded after the image processing operation, to the at least one different image processing apparatus requesting transmission of the codestream based on the priority assigned by the primary priority assigning mechanism.