Multi-layered storage and transmission for animated 3D polygonal meshes

Highly detailed geometric models are rapidly becoming common-place in computer graphics and multimedia. MPEG4 is introducing standards for three-dimensional polygon meshes. Analogously to video, highly complex polygon meshes challenge not only rendering performance but also transmission bandwidth and storage capacities. Current work focuses only on the compression, and progressive refinement and transmission of static polygon meshes. On the other hand, geometric content is no longer static, it allows user interaction and complex changes within the geometry. Since this emerging problem has to be addressed in any future multimedia standard this paper aims to open the research by exploring similarities and differences in transmission and storage of dynamically changing polygon meshes and geometry compared to other stream data, such as video. In this paper we propose techniques for multi-layered storage and transmission of animated geometry in low bandwidth environments. Our approach extends existing technologies for multi-layered representation of static polygon meshes to dynamic architectures.