  Objective visual quality assessment of 3D models is a fundamental issue in
computer graphics. Quality assessment metrics may allow a wide range of
processes to be guided and evaluated, such as level of detail creation,
compression, filtering, and so on. Most computer graphics assets are composed
of geometric surfaces on which several texture images can be mapped to 11 make
the rendering more realistic. While some quality assessment metrics exist for
geometric surfaces, almost no research has been conducted on the evaluation of
texture-mapped 3D models. In this context, we present a new subjective study to
evaluate the perceptual quality of textured meshes, based on a paired
comparison protocol. We introduce both texture and geometry distortions on a
set of 5 reference models to produce a database of 136 distorted models,
evaluated using two rendering protocols. Based on analysis of the results, we
propose two new metrics for visual quality assessment of textured mesh, as
optimized linear combinations of accurate geometry and texture quality
measurements. These proposed perceptual metrics outperform their counterparts
in terms of correlation with human opinion. The database, along with the
associated subjective scores, will be made publicly available online.
