Hierarchical image-based representation of still and animated three-dimensional object, method and apparatus for using this representation for the object rendering

Abstract

Provided is a method and apparatus for representation and rendering of three-dimensional still and animated objects, using Binary Volumetric Octree. The three-dimensional object representation based on depth images, requiring relatively small storage space and allowing for fast and high quality rendering. Original data of a three-dimensional object are converted into Binary Volumetric Octree (BVO) format, where color is attributed to each BVO vertex corresponding to coordinates of points belonging to object surface, said color being the average of colors of object surface points whose coordinates are inside a cube representing a three-dimensional image element, voxel; the BVO is rendered by hierarchical traversal of the octree from root vertex to leaves so that to obtain local three-dimensional coordinates of centers of voxels corresponding to BVO leaves, to transform the obtained three-dimensional coordinates into two-dimensional coordinates of the voxel center and information of size of the projected voxel image, and to generate for each BVO leaf and display a corresponding splat covering area of the projected voxel image and using color information, the three-dimensional object being visualized by a plurality of the displayed splats.