Patent ID: 8483510

Claim:
An image merge device which merges a first image and a second image, comprising: a common area determination unit configured to determine a common area between the first image and the second image; a correlation calculation unit configured to calculate a correlation level indicating a degree of a gap between the first image in the common area near a boundary of the first image and the second image and the second image in the common area near the boundary when the first image and the second image are aligned using the common area; a superimposed area determination unit configured to determine a superimposed area in which the first and second images are superimposed near the boundary based on the correlation level calculated by the correlation calculation unit; and a first image conversion unit configured to convert at least one of the first and second images in the superimposed area, wherein the correlation calculation unit acquires pixel value of pixels in the vicinity of the boundary from each of the first image and the second image, calculates first statistics of pixel value of the pixels from the vicinity of the boundary of the first image and second statistics of pixel value of the pixels from the vicinity of the boundary of the second image, and calculates the correlation level based on both the first statistics and the second statistics, the first and the second statistics are any of average, cumulative sum, standard deviation, and dispersion.