Patent attributes
A family of node structures for representing 3-dimensional objects using depth image are provided. These node structures can be adopted into MPEG-4 AFX for conventional polygonal 3D representations. Main formats of the family are DepthImage, PointTexture and OctreeImage. DepthImage represents an object by a union of its reference images and corresponding depth maps. PointTexture represents the object as a set of colored points parameterized by projection onto a regular 2D grid. OctreeImage converts the same data into hierarchical octree-structured voxel model, set of compact reference images and a tree of voxel-image correspondence indices. DepthImage and OctreeImage have animated versions, where reference images are replaced by videostreams. DIBR formats are very convenient for 3D model construction from 3D range-scanning and multiple source video data. MPEG-4 framework allows construction of a wide variety of representations from the main DIBR formats, providing flexible tools for effective work with 3D models. Compression of the DIBR formats is achieved by application of image (video) compression techniques to depth maps and reference images (videostreams).
