A multiple B-Spline representation for progressive 3D mesh compression

This paper proposes a new progressive compression scheme for 3D triangular meshes, based on a multipatch B-Spline representation. First, the mesh is segmented into multiple patches. Each patch is then parameterized, and approximated by a B-Spline surface. The B-Spline control points are stored into 2D images and compressed using optimized still image encoders. The initial mesh topology is lossless encoded by applying the Touma and Gotsman (TG) algorithm. The performances of the proposed compression scheme show significant gains (30% on average) when compared to those of the Spectral Compression (SC), and outperforms TG and MPEG-4 encoders especially within the range of low bitrates (less than 8 bits per vertex). Key-Words: 3D mesh compression, geometry images, B-Spline, parameterization.