Patent ID: 6362820
Filing Date: 2002-03-26
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
A computer based method for generating a data structure that models the outer surface geometry of a three-dimensional object to be rendered, comprising:(a) generating a first mesh representation of the object, wherein the first mesh comprises a first number of vertices and faces spanning the vertices, wherein each vertex has an associated geometric position and an appearance attribute; and (b) generating a second mesh representation of the object, wherein the second mesh is created by performing an edge collapse transformation on the first mesh, wherein the edge collapse transformation yields a new vertex (v) having an associated geometric position p and appearance attribute s=(s1 . . . sm), wherein values for p and s are selected by determining values of p and s that minimize a quadric error metric, Qf&af;(v.=(ps))=Qpf&af;(v)+&Sum;j=1m&it;Qsjf&af;(v)wherein the geometric error Qfp(v) is the squared distance from p to its projection pâ€² onto a face f, and the attribute error Qfsj(v) is the squared deviation between sj and the value sjâ€² interpolated from the face f at the projected point pâ€².