English

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) modeling is applied in numerous fields such as medical imaging, archaeology, industrial fabrication of machine parts and tools, gaming, animation, architecture, and interior design. In several such applications, the 3D model is developed based on an initial two-dimensional (2D) image of the model. An important aspect of converting a 2D image into a 3D model is the preservation and representation of the associated color information. With the advent of 3D printing technology, colored 3D models can be developed from their corresponding 2D images and can then be printed with the aid of 3D slicing software. Although several file formats are available for supporting generic 3D printing, only a few of them support colored 3D printing. Additionally, if the 3D model is complex, the associated color data will be huge, which will lead to longer processing times and greater storage requirements for both the 3D modeling software and the 3D slicing software. Hence, in this study, a lossy compression algorithm is proposed for representing the color information associated with OBJ and MTL file formats. The proposed compression algorithm has been designed to reduce the memory storage required for representing a 3D model's color information without significantly affecting the model's visual color appearance.