Patent ID: 8207965

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: obtaining a digital representation of an object, the digital representation comprising a data structure with tessellated data defining the object in terms of triangles representing faces on a surface of the object and digital values representing the coordinates of the vertices of the triangles and vectors representing normals to the surface; analyzing the tessellated data to identify neighboring triangles, that is triangles that have a common edge; identifying one or more stripes each comprising a series of neighboring triangles; for each stripe, compressing the series of neighboring triangles in the stripe to generate compressed digital representations of the triangles in the stripe, wherein said compressing comprises, for each subsequent triangle in the stripe after an initial triangle in the stripe, defining the vertices of the compressed digital representation of the given triangle with respect to the compressed digital representation of the preceding neighboring triangle in the stripe, wherein said defining defines the vertices of the compressed digital representation of the given triangle in terms of a compressed digital representation of a third vertex of the given triangle and references to the compressed digital representations of the vertices at respective ends of the common edge for the given triangle and the preceding neighboring triangle, wherein the compressed digital representation of the third vertex of the given triangle is defined in terms of a vector from a predetermined position with respect to the common edge to the third vertex, wherein the predetermined position is a point on another vector originating at a vertex of the preceding neighboring triangle that is not common to the given triangle and that passes through a point on the common edge; and storing the compressed digital representations of the triangles to generate a compressed digital representation of the object.