IMAGING APPARATUS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To achieve more realistic remote dialogue with a feeling of presence without complicating the entire system. SOLUTION: A photographic object is picked up from mutually different angles by at least two cameras, foreground image areas including the photographic object and their background image areas are separated, respectively, from the respective picked up images, mapping is performed by every pixel position while associating with the photographic object among the respective separated foreground image areas, relative positional information indicating relative positional relation of the photographic object to the respective cameras is generated, a pixel position constituting a virtual viewpoint image which should be newly generated according to the generated relative positional information and its luminance components are calculated from mutually mapped pixel positions the luminance components and the virtual viewpoint image to be constituted of the calculated pixel position and its luminance components is transmitted to the outside. COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI