Patent ID: 8525835

Claim:
A method for compressing a plurality of data from a three dimensional imaging device, the method comprising: receiving, by a processor, the plurality of data from the three dimensional imaging device, wherein each data in the plurality of data is defined by a three dimensional coordinate in a first coordinate system; associating, by the processor, the first coordinate system with a three dimensional grid in a second coordinate system, the three dimensional grid having a plurality of locations, each of the plurality of locations initially being inactive; responsive to each of the plurality of data, determining, by the processor, a number of non-zero values associated with a number of corresponding locations in the plurality of locations; responsive to determining, by the processor, the number of non-zero values associated with the number of corresponding locations, activating each of the corresponding locations to form a plurality of active locations; forming, by the processor, a plurality of metadata from the plurality of data only for each of the plurality of active locations; and storing the plurality of metadata as a compression of the plurality of data from the three dimensional imaging system.