Compression of the Lumigraph/Lightfield
Figure 1. 2D image array of Lumigraph/Lightfield
A Lumigraph/Lightfield captures the complete appearance
of a 3D object/scene in the form of 2D image array, and is able to quickly render
an arbitrary view independent of the scene/object complexity. Since the data
amount of the Lumigraph is huge, the efficient storage and access of the Lumigraph/Lightfield
is essential. In this work, we propose a multiple reference frame (MRF) structure
to compress the Lumigraph/Lightfield. By predicting the Lumigraph/Lightfield
images from the neighbor views and compressing the prediction residue, highly
efficient compression is achieved. More important, the MRF is able to achieve
the functionality of just-in-time (JIT) rendering, in which only the portion
of the compressed bitstream needed to render the current view is accessed, decoded
and rendered. Compared with first expanding the compressed Lumigraph and then
rendering, JIT rendering eliminates the need of a huge buffer at the decoding
end, and greatly reduces the cost of the rendering engine. The decoder cache
is used extensively in the MRF render to speed up rendering. The trade off between
the computational speed and memory requirement of the MRF render is discussed.
For more details of the work, please refer to the
followings:
©Copyright by Jin
Li, June 22, 2001