NORMAL INFORMATION ESTIMATOR, REGISTRATION IMAGE GROUP FORMING DEVICE, IMAGE COLLATOR AND NORMAL INFORMATION ESTIMATING METHOD

摘要

A normal information estimator for estimating the normal information on an object from the image thereof, comprising a section for estimating an illuminating direction to the object at the image from the luminance of the image, a section for estimating the normal information of the object at the image based on the illuminating direction, and a section for estimating the mirror reflection component of the image from the normal information of the object and the illuminating direction to the object, wherein the normal information estimating section estimates the normal information again from an image from which the mirror reflection component is removed at a mirror reflection component removing section, and outputs normal information estimated from the image from which the mirror reflection component is removed.