Patent ID: 8908965

Claim:
An image processor for performing noise smoothing on an input image, the image processor comprising: a first calculator configured to calculate, for each of reference pixels selected at random with respect to a target image in the input image, similarity between a first region including the target pixel and a second region including the reference pixel, and using the similarity, calculate a multiplication coefficient which increases as the similarity increases; a second calculator configured to calculate a random number assigned to each of the reference pixels; a sum-of-products arithmetic unit configured to perform a multiplication of a pixel value of each of the reference pixels by the multiplication coefficient for the reference pixel and the random number assigned to the reference pixel and perform the multiplication for the reference pixels to generate products, and compute a sum of the products; a coefficient summation unit configured to perform a multiplication of the multiplication coefficient for each of the reference pixels by the random number assigned to the reference pixel and perform the multiplication for the reference pixels to generate products, and compute a sum of the products; and a division unit configured to divide the sum obtained by the sum-of-products arithmetic unit by the sum obtained by the coefficient summation unit, and output a result of the division as a pixel value of the target pixel.