US Patent 7860276 Image processing device and method

A technique is provided that can precisely measure the photographing position and posture of a photographing device and the coordinates of an object from moving images or photographed images that sequentially change gradually, even in the case with the need to process the sway of the photographing device and the disappearance and reappearance of characteristic points. An image processing device 100 according to the present invention includes: a photographed image acquisition 2 section for sequentially acquiring photographed images, that change gradually, of a relatively moving object; a characteristic extraction section 3 for extracting characteristic points from a photographed image acquired with the photographed image acquisition section; a characteristic point tracking section 4 for searching a plurality of the photographed images acquired before or after the photographed image from which the characteristic points have been extracted, for candidate corresponding points corresponding to the characteristic points, to keep track of the characteristic points; and a processing section 5 for determining corresponding points from the candidate corresponding points based on tracking results to calculate coordinates of a photographing position or the object using the determined corresponding points.