Patent ID: 7123275

Claim:
An image composition method comprising: inputting a first moving image; inputting answer object regions for respective frames of the first moving image; extracting a plurality of answer object images from the respective frames of the first moving image using the answer object regions; generating an answer strobe composite image in which the plurality of answer object images are superposed; determining an extraction parameter which depends on the answer strobe composite image; inputting a second moving image; extracting object images from respective frames of the second moving image using the extraction parameter; and generating a strobe composite image in which the object images extracted from the respective frames of the second moving image are superposed, and wherein the determining the extraction parameter comprises: (a) detecting temporary object regions from the respective frames of the first moving image using a temporary extraction parameter; (b) extracting a plurality of temporary object images from the respective frames of the first moving image using the temporary object regions; (c) generating a temporary strobe composite image in which the plurality of temporary object images are superposed; (d) calculating an error between the answer strobe composite image and the temporary strobe composite image; and repeating (a) to (d) while changing the temporary extraction parameter, and determining the temporary extraction parameter which minimizes the error as the extraction parameter.