IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD AND APPARATUS

摘要

An apparatus of this invention divides an image into stripe-shaped images. The image is input in units of divided stripe-shaped images, and outline pixels are traced in units of input stripe-shaped images to extract horizontal and vertical vectors. The extracted vectors are stored in the memory. A vertical vector to be connected to each of the extracted horizontal vectors, and a horizontal vector to be connected to each of the vertical vectors are searched, thereby extracting an outline vector which clarifies the connection relationship among these horizontal and vertical vectors.