Patent ID: 8284451

Claim:
An image processing apparatus comprising: a segmentation unit configured to segment an input image into a plurality of regions for respective attributes, the plurality of regions including at least an illustration region; an extraction unit configured to extract color regions based on appearance colors from the illustration region segmented by the segmentation unit; a vectorization unit configured to generate a plurality of vector data from contour lines of the color regions extracted from the illustration region, and to assign graphic attribute information to the vector data generated from the color regions included in the illustration region; a detection unit configured to detect, from the plurality of vector data generated from the contour lines of the color regions, vector data corresponding to a circumscribed color region which contacts a region outside the illustration region; a comparison unit configured to compare a color of the vector data of the circumscribed color region with a color of the region outside the illustration region; a change unit configured to change, when the color of the vector data of the circumscribed color region and the color of the region outside the illustration region are the same or similar color as a result of the comparison, the graphic attribute information assigned to the vector data of the circumscribed color region of which the color is the same or similar with the color of the region outside the illustration region into attribute information of the region outside the illustration region; and a generation unit configured to generate data of a predetermined format based on the vector data of the circumscribed color region having the changed attribute information and the vector data of the other color region having the graphic attribute information.