Patent ID: 8290256

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a unit which extracts an area of an object as an object area from an image; a division unit which divides the object area into a plurality of meshes and obtains position information, gradient information, and color information of each vertex that forms each of the meshes; a calculation unit which calculates a color of each of the plurality of meshes using the color information and gradient information of each vertex that forms the mesh; a determination unit which obtains a difference between the color of each of the plurality of meshes that is calculated by the calculation unit, and a color in a region in the object area that corresponds to each of the plurality of meshes, and determines whether a sum of obtained differences is not smaller than a threshold; a first encoding unit which, when the sum is smaller than the threshold, encodes the position information, gradient information, and color information of each vertex that are obtained by the division unit; and a second encoding unit which, when the sum is not smaller than the threshold, subdivides each mesh divided by the division unit into submeshes, specifies color information at a position in the object area that corresponds to each vertex that forms each of the submeshes, and encodes the specified color information.