A TEXTURE-MAPPING APPROACH FOR THE COMPRESSION OF COLORED 3D TRIANGULATIONS

We present an algorithm that constructs compact and realistic descript ions of colored 3D objects using texture mapping on compressed triangu lations. A high-resolution triangular mesh model is created by integra ting measurements from a color 3D laser sensor. Each vertex is attribu ted with a RGB color value. The high-resolution triangulation is trans formed into a compressed triangulation and a texture map. This map emb eds the color information of the vertices removed during the geometric compression and projected on the lower resolution triangulation. We d escribe the algorithm for the rapid and efficient construction of a te xture map for compressed triangulations of arbitrary topology. Experim ents show that high compression rates can be achieved while maintainin g good visual similarity between the original and compressed models.