Joint Source and Channel Coding for 3-D Scene Databases Using Vector Quantization and Embedded Parity Objects

Abstract

Three-dimensional graphic scenes contain various mesh objects in one geometric space where different objects have potentially unequal importance regarding display. This paper proposes an object-oriented system for efficiently coding and streaming 3-D scene databases in lossy and rate-constrained environments. Vector quantization (VQ) is exploited to code 3-D scene databases into multiresolution hierarchies. For the best distortion-rate performance, adaptive quantization precisions are allocated to different objects and different layers of each object based on a weighted distortion model. Upon transmission, scalably coded objects are delivered in respective packet sequences to preserve their manipulation independency. For packet loss resilience, a plurality of FEC codes are generated as "parity objects" parallel to graphic objects, which protect the graphic objects concurrently and also preferentially in regard to their unequal decoding importance. A rate-distortion optimization framework is then developed, which performs rate allocation between graphic objects and parity objects and generates the parity data properly. We show that, by treating graphic objects jointly and preferentially in source and channel coding while preserving their independencies in transport, the proposed system reduces the receiving distortion of the 3-D database significantly compared to conventional methods.