Patent ID: 8619092

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for reading image data stored in a plurality of frame buffers each of which corresponds to one layer and for superimposing and displaying the image data, the apparatus comprising: a first transmission attribute storage section for storing first transmission attributes assigned to the respective frame buffers; a plurality of temporary transmission attribute storage sections each of which corresponds to each of the plurality of frame buffers; a mask information storage section for storing mask information for memory access mask areas which are set on at least one of the plurality of frame buffers and are assigned a same second transmission attribute in the image data stored in the plurality of frame buffers, the second transmission attributes being independent of the first transmission attributes; a mask area inside/outside determination section for determining by reference to information defining the memory access mask area in the mask information whether image data which is being scanned is in one of the memory access mask areas; an image data read section for reading the image data from the plurality of frame buffers; and a superposition process section for performing a superposition process, wherein the temporary transmission attribute storage sections store only the second transmission attribute assigned to the memory access mask area when it is determined that the image data is in the memory access mask area, and store only the first transmission attribute assigned to the corresponding frame buffer when it is determined that the image data is not in the memory access mask area, and the image data read section reads the image data from the frame buffers corresponding to the temporary transmission attribute storage sections, on the basis of the first transmission attribute or second transmission attribute stored in the temporary transmission attribute storage sections.