IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

A image signal processing circuit acquires a plurality of images captured while an image capturing direction is sequentially changed. A microcomputer calculates the amount of movement along image capturing direction at the time when the plurality of images is sequentially captured, and calculates a projective transformation coefficient for each of the plurality of images based on a posture of an image capturing apparatus at the time when each of the plurality of images is captured. Then, the image signal processing circuit performs a projective transformation using the coefficient to correct trapezoidal distortions in the images, and, performs alignment between the images of neighboring image capturing direction after the projective transformation is performed, based on the amount of movement, and combines the images on which the alignment has been performed by joining the images together in the order in which the image capturing direction is changed.