Predictive vector quantization of 3-D mesh geometry by representation of vertices in local coordinate systems

In predictive 3-D mesh geometry coding, the position of each vertex is predicted from the previously coded neighboring vertices and the resultant prediction error vectors are coded. In this work, the prediction error vectors are represented in a local coordinate system in order to cluster them around a subset of a 2-D planar subspace and thereby increase block coding efficiency. Alphabet entropy constrained vector quantization (AECVQ) of Rao and Pearlman is preferred to the previously employed minimum distortion vector quantization (MDVQ) for block coding the prediction error vectors with high coding efficiency and low implementation complexity. Estimation and compensation of the bias in the parallelogram prediction rule and partial adaptation of the AECVQ codebook to the encoded vector source by normalization using source statistics, are the other salient features of the proposed coding system. Experimental results verify the advantage of the use of the local coordinate system over the global one. The visual error of the proposed coding system is lower than the predictive coding method of Touma and Gotsman especially at low rates, and lower than the spectral coding method of Karni and Gotsman at medium-to-high rates.