Two-Dimensional Mesh-Based Visual- Object Representation for Interactive Synthetic/Natural Digital Video

This paper first provides an overview of two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional mesh models for digital video processing. It then introduces 2-D mesh-based modeling of video objects as a compact representation of motion and shape for interactive, synthetic/natural video manipulation, compression, and indexing. The 2-D mesh representation and the mesh geometry and motion compression have recently been included in the visual tools of the upcoming MPEG-4 standard. Functionalities enabled by 2-D mesh-based visual object representation include animation of still texture maps, transfiguration of video overlays, video morphing, and shapeand motion-based retrieval of video objects.