Patent Document ID: 8229169
Application ID: 12076068

Base Claim:
1. A feature information collecting apparatus, comprising: a first memory; and a controller that: acquires vehicle position information that represents a current position of a vehicle; acquires image information for a vicinity of the vehicle; carries out image recognition processing on recognition target objects that are included in the image information; stores recognition information in the first memory that represents a result of the image recognition of the recognition target objects in association with information for the recognition position of the recognition target objects, the recognition position determined based on the vehicle position information; and extracts, as learned features, recognition target objects that can be repeatedly recognized by image recognition based on a plurality of sets of recognition information related to the same position, the plurality of sets of recognition information being stored due to the image information for the same position being recognized a plurality of times by image recognition; wherein the recognition information is a characteristic amount represented by at least one of a noise amount and an amount of extractions of edge included in the image information.

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Claim 3:
3. The feature information collecting apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the controller: adds a learning value to each of a predetermined position range each time the recognition results for the recognition target objects satisfy learning conditions, the learning value allocated due to the recognition results for recognition target objects satisfying predetermined learning conditions; extracts as the learned features the recognition target objects in a position range in which the learning value has become equal to or greater than a predetermined learning threshold value; and uses a position associated with each position range as the position information for the learned features.