DISTANCE INFORMATION GENERATION APPARATUS AND DISTANCE INFORMATION GENERATION METHOD

A distance information generation apparatus obtains a measurement depth image that expresses a measurement result for a distance to an object and a color image captured at a corresponding field of view. The measurement depth image is upsampled by a predetermined technique to generate a candidate depth image. On the basis of a result of analyzing the color image, a reflection characteristic for the object, and information regarding a relative motion between an image capturing apparatus and the object, a reliability image, in which a reliability for a distance value expressed by the candidate depth image is set for each pixel, is generated. A distance value having a high reliability is read out for each pixel from the candidate depth image, whereby an output depth image is generated.