Patent ID: 7120316

Claim:
An image processing apparatus for correcting a positional offset between an input image and a reference image, comprising: storage means for storing information about the reference image, including a reference position; area information specifying means for obtaining information about a plurality of areas included in the input image, the information including a predetermined first end coordinate on a horizontal axis and a predetermined second end coordinate on a vertical axis for each of the plurality of areas; target position setting means for obtaining an end-most coordinate on the horizontal axes from among the first end coordinates of the plurality of areas included in the information obtained by said area information specifying means, obtaining an end-most coordinate on the vertical axes from among the second end coordinates of the plurality of areas, and setting the obtained end-most coordinate on the horizontal axes and the obtained end-most coordinate on the vertical axes as a target position; calculating means for specifying information about the reference image, in accordance with the input image, from said storage means, and calculating a positional offset between the reference position included in the specified information and the target position set by said target position setting means; and correcting means for correcting positions of a plurality of areas included in the input image by using the positional offset calculated by said calculating means.