1. An image processing apparatus that processes comprising: a stereo camera including a reference camera to capture a reference image and a comparison camera to capture a comparison image; an image processing controller configured to obtain disparity information of each point commonly found in the reference image and the comparison image for calculating three-dimensional distance information to be used to specify an obiect captured by the stereo camera; a recognition processing controller configured to: specify a target object area encircling the object in one of the reference image and the comparison image based on the three-dimensional distance information, the object including a plurality of objects located within a predetermined distance; perform spatial filter processing of the target object area to extract an image feature amount including at least one of a brightness mode value which is cumulative frequencies of edge strength of the object in the target area, and an average value of the edge strength of the object in the target area: and determine whether or not the object in the target object area is a smoky object, based on the image feature amount in the target object area.