IMAGE PROCESSOR

PURPOSE:To perform a background processing independently of the kinds of back-grounds and scanning directions. CONSTITUTION:A document 100 is read by an image reading part 20 and a Hausdorff dimension is calculated by a Hausdorff dimension calculation part 40 for the picture element group of a prescribed size in an arbitrary part segmented from the read image by an image segment part 30. The Hausdorff dimension is the one where the dimension to be the degree of freedom of space normally shown by an integer is extended to a real number. When this Hausdorff dimension is calculated, a character part becomes a dimension which is close to 2-dimension. For instance, the part becomes 1.85-dimension or more and 2 dimension or less, etc. Therefore, a back-ground can be eliminated by extracting only the part of a picture element group which is 1.85 dimension or more or by eliminating the part of a picture element group which is 1.85 dimension or less, for instance. By eliminating the part of picture elements which are 0.5 dimension or less, for instance, noise can be eliminated.