Compression of Point-Based 3D Models by Shape-Adaptive Wavelet Coding of Multi-Height Field.pdf

Eurographics Symposium on Point-Based Graphics (2004) M. Alexa, S. Rusinkiewicz, (Editors) Compression of Point-Based 3D Models by Shape-Adaptive Wavelet Coding of Multi-Height Fields Tilo Ochotta, Dietmar Saupe Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany Abstract In order to efficiently archive and transmit large 3D models, lossy and lossless compression methods are needed. We propose a compression scheme for coordinate data of point-based 3D models of surfaces. A point-based model is processed for compression in a pipeline of three subsequent operations, partitioning, parameterization, and coding. First the point set is partitioned yielding a suitable number of point clusters. Each cluster corresponds to a surface patch, that can be parameterized as a height field and resampled on a regular grid. The domains of the height fields have irregular shapes that are encoded losslessly. The height fields themselves are encoded using a shape-adaptive wavelet coder, producing a progressive bitstream for each patch. A rate-distortion optimization provides for an optimal bit allocation for the individual patch codes. With this algorithm design compact codes are produced that are scalable with respect to rate, quality, and resolution. In our encodings of complex 3D models competitive rate-distortion performances were achieved with excellent reconstruction quality at under 3 bits per point (bpp). Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): I.4 [Coding and Information Theory]: Data com- paction and compression 1. Introduction The number of 3D models that are created by means of ge- ometry acquisition, by modelling tools, and by means of simulation is increasing rapidly. In order to allow space- saving storage and time efficient transmission of 3D models, methods for their efficient representation are needed. Thus, geometry compression has developed to become an impor- tant field in computer graphics. The most com