To effectively use a feature which a multiple viewpoint picture has and to reduce information quantity by selecting/encoding the multiple viewpoint picture from the judged result of the symmetrical ability of an object, multiplexing information on symmetrical ability and generating an encoding stream.

A modeling part 103 estimates a coordinate value (r) corresponding to respective points on an object face, specifies the viewpoint picture and a pertinent block in the viewpoint picture used as the representative luminance value of the respective points is sent to an intra-frame encoding circuit constituted of a variable length encoding circuit 113. A difference is taken in a block unit between the generated prediction signals of respective frames and a corresponding input frame in a subtracter 106. A discrete cosine transformation(DCT) circuit 107 executes DCT in the block unit and a quantization circuit 109 executes quantization. A multiplex circuit 116 multiplexes the encoding result of model information and information on symmetrical ability from the variable length encoding circuit 113, and the encoding result of the prediction error from a variable length encoding circuit 110 and outputs the encoding stream of the multiple viewpoint picture.