To reduce communication volume and communication time without conducting transmission and reception of image data for overlapping parts of each graphic object described in multimedia describing data.

At an image communication device 202, overlapping of each graphic object described in a multimedia describing data is determined. For an image which is determined that it is not overlapping with other graphic objects, a whole image request of a whole image data is transmitted to an image communication device 201. For an image which is determined that it is overlapping with other graphic objects, one or more partial images are decided, and a partial image data request which corresponds to the decided partial image is transmitted to the image communication device 201. Then, a whole image data or a partial image data which is replied according to the request is received, and by using the received whole image data or the partial image data, a layout image described by a multimedia describing data is formed.