Depth Range Reduction for 3D Range Geometry Compression

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to reduce the depth range of 3D geometry data, enabling more efficient storage and transmission within 2D images without significantly increasing reconstruction errors.

Contribution

It proposes a novel pre-encoding depth range reduction technique that improves compression efficiency and is compatible with existing image-based 3D data compression methods.

Findings

Smaller compressed file sizes achieved

Lower encoding frequencies used for storage

Compatible with various existing methods

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) shape measurement devices and techniques are being rapidly adopted within a variety of industries and applications. As acquiring 3D range data becomes faster and more accurate it becomes more challenging to efficiently store, transmit, or stream this data. One prevailing approach to compressing 3D range data is to encode it within the color channels of regular 2D images. This paper presents a novel method for reducing the depth range of a 3D geometry such that it can be stored within a 2D image using lower encoding frequencies (or a fewer number of encoding periods). This allows for smaller compressed file sizes to be achieved without a proportional increase in reconstruction errors. Further, as the proposed method occurs prior to encoding, it is readily compatible with a variety of existing image-based 3D range geometry compression methods.