Patent Document ID: 20120076373
Application ID: 13206072
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. An image processing apparatus comprising: a first feature value calculation unit adapted to calculate a first feature value for each pixel in an image picked up of living tissue, where the first feature value represents a value of an index which indicates what shape a local region including a pixel of interest and each pixel in a neighborhood of the pixel of interest has; a second feature value calculation unit adapted to calculate a degree of concentration of a gradient vector as a second feature value based on the gradient vector defined by a gradient direction and a gradient intensity calculated for each pixel in the image, where the degree of concentration of the gradient vector represents a state of distribution of the gradient direction in the local region; an evaluation value calculation unit adapted to calculate a geometric evaluation value for each pixel in the image, where a value which enables distinguishing between a linear structure and a massive structure contained in the image is calculated as the geometric evaluation value based on calculation results of the first feature value and the second feature value; and a region extraction unit adapted to separately extract a candidate region estimated to contain the linear structure and a candidate region estimated to contain the massive structure based on a calculation result of the geometric evaluation value.