Compression of time-dependent geometry

Abstract

This paper presents a new view of time-dependent geometry as a streaming media type and presents new techniques for taking advantage of the large amount of coherence in time. Previous techniques for geometry compression considered only static geometry or techniques for speeding up the calculation of a particular animation method. This paper describes how to compress a generic time-dependent geometry stream by solving for few-parameter models and encoding the residual. With a quality threshold of 30 dB SNR, for an animated chicken character, compression ratios of 30× are achieved with the simple technique of 3D affine transformation matching with residual row prediction. Level-of-detail makes the compression calculations tractable and provides smooth degradation for flexible rendering architectures. Potential applications range from reducing host-to-graphics-engine bandwidth within a system to the transmission of complex moving geometry across low-bandwidth network connections. By using compressed animated geometry, interactive applications can incorporate much richer animation than previously possible.