Patent ID: 8723919

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a parallax estimation unit configured to estimate parallax with respect to a left eye image and a right eye image corresponding to a current frame of a three-dimensional (3D) image; a horizontal movement value determination unit configured to determine a horizontal movement value with respect to the left eye image and the right eye image by determining a focus control parameter using the estimated parallax and by determining a difference in parallax between the focus control parameter and a view fatigue safety range with respect to the current frame; a horizontal movement unit configured to horizontally move the left eye image and the right eye image based on the determined horizontal movement value; and a controller configured to calculate a chronological change rate of the estimated parallax for a predetermined time, determine whether the calculated chronological change rate is greater than a predetermined threshold, and, limit the horizontal movement value to a predetermined range and control the horizontal movement unit to horizontally move the left eye image and the right eye image based on the limited horizontal movement value in response to the calculated chronological change rate being greater than the predetermined threshold.