DETAILED ACTION
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on February 11th, 2026 has been entered.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed February 11th, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant alleges that “Sandri is silent with respect to determining, for each of the plurality of images a plurality of image attributes associated with the camera position” (page 8 of “Remarks”), “Sandri is silent with respect to… a plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions” (page 9 of “Remarks”), and “color is one attribute and cannot be said to teach or suggest determining a plurality of image attributes (for each of the plurality of images)” (pages 8 and 9 of “Remarks”). Examiner respectfully disagrees. Sandri describes that each voxel can be describes by its location in space and color seen by each camera, as taught by Section III and equation 3. As can be further seen in equation 3, each color from a single camera is described through its red, green, and blue values. Each of these values could be reasonably interpreted as a single image attribute, and therefore together this teaches a plurality of image attributes for each image/camera. Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
Furthermore, applicant alleges that “Sandri is silent with respect to an index being included in metadata much less an index that enables matching of the determined plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions with attribute values seen from a viewer position.” (page 8 of “Remarks”) and “Sandri is silent with respect to an index being included in metadata much less an index that enables matching of the determined plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions with attribute values seen from a viewer position.” (pages 9 and 10 of “Remarks”). Examiner respectfully disagrees. As can best be understood by the examiner, an index that enables matching of the determined plurality of images attributes associated with each of the camera positions with attribute values seen from a viewer position can be interpreted as meaning an index that allows for a new view (not included in the plurality of camera positions) to be created by matching attributes from the plurality of camera positions to the desired new view angle. Sandri describes that view interpolation would be enabled (Introduction), but does not describe how the view interpolation would be performed. However, the claim requires that the index enables the novel view synthesis, which Sandri does enable with their vector (equation 3) which describes the color of a voxel as seen by a plurality of camera positions, which would be used for view interpolation. Therefore, the rejection is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 21, 23-24, 29-30, and 36-37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “Compression of Plenoptic Point Clouds” (herein after referred to by its primary author, Sandri) in view of US20210006833 (herein after referred to by its primary author, Tourapis).
In regards to claim 21, Sandri teaches a method for processing images comprising: receiving a plurality of images, wherein each of the plurality of images was captured from one of a plurality of camera positions (Sandri Section I “By processing the information captured by an array of cameras combined with depth maps [5]–[6], or from light-field cameras [7], one can produce a point cloud representing the scene... In such, we define plenoptic voxels where each point (voxel) is seen as a source emitting light in all directions (see Fig. 1).”); determining, for each of the plurality of images, a camera position of the plurality of camera positions and a plurality of image attributes associated with the camera position (Sandri Equation 3; Figure 4; Section II B “We generate a two-dimensional map over the [theta]h plane with a projection of the colors as seen in every direction captured by the cameras (Fig. 3). One may divide the camera directions ([theta]h) plane into sub-regions of equal area as depicted in Fig. 4. Each area is a quantized description of the camera direction.” Examiner note: Equation 3 shows that each voxel has a red, green, and blue value for each camera, each of those color values can be seen as a single attribute, and therefore each voxel has a plurality of attributes. Then, figure 4 shows that each camera (represented by red dots) position is encoded in the theta-h plane, as can also be seen in figure 3.); and generating a bitstream for the plurality of images, wherein the bitstream comprises Sandri Section III B “Therefore, we apply RAHT [14] to the colors associated with each camera (subregion), through a 2D quad-tree decomposition rather than the 3D octree… One can view it as if there were Nc point clouds, where voxel colors are the coefficient values, all sharing the same geometry. Each cloud is then transformed and encoded using the RAHT coder.” Examiner note: RAHT (Region Adaptive Hierarchical Transform) is an algorithm for compressing point clouds, in this case it is applied to each color for each camera, and this encoding provides a plurality of image attributes (for each color) for all of the camera positions), wherein the metadata provides an index that enables matching of the determined plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions with attribute values seen from a viewer position (Sandri Section 1 “For other directions beyond those sampled (captured) we can synthesize the color by interpolation. Nevertheless, view synthesis is out of the scope of this work.” Examiner note: As can be best understood by the examiner, this limitation requires that the metadata enables the system to use the plurality of image attributes associated with each camera position to match the values seen from a view position, thus enabling a new view from previously captured views. Sandri describes that view synthesis from a new camera positions is possible, but does not further describe the method used to perform this view interpolation. However, under BRI, this limitation only requires that novel view synthesis, which is analogous to view interpolation, be possible, which Sandri describes).
Sandri does not teach wherein the bitstream comprises one or more SEI messages.
However, Tourapis teaches wherein the bitstream comprises one or more SEI messages (Tourapis Paragraph [0483] “In some embodiments, volumetric tiling information included in a supplementary message may take the form of a supplemental enhancement information (SEI message), named as the volumetric tiling information SEI message or volumetric annotation supplementary message.”)
Tourapis is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of compressing point cloud data. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri to include the teachings of Tourapis, to provide the benefit of a system that is able to assign characteristics to certain regions of interest (Tourapis Paragraph [0483] “Such messages may enable a signaling mechanism to identify spatial areas or regions of interest in a point cloud, such as objects or portions of a scene. Such messages may further enable characteristics to be assigned to the spatial areas or regions of interest, such as: labels, 3D bounding box information, collision shapes, whether the object/portion of a scene is visible or hidden, a priority for rendering the object/portion of the scene relative to other portions of the point cloud, relationships between objects in the point cloud, etc.”)
In regards to claim 23, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 21, wherein the metadata provides an identification of an atlas that corresponds to a volumetric coding unit (Tourapis Paragraph [0484] “In some embodiments, to achieve the desired functionality, e.g. support region of interest/spatial random access or scalability within a video encoded point cloud application (e.g. a V-PCC application), an occupancy map (e.g. atlas) of a video encoded point cloud frame (e.g. a V-PCC frame) may be partitioned into several segments, where each segment contains patches that correspond to only certain regions of the reconstructed point cloud in 3D space corresponding to respective objects.”).
In regards to claim 24, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 21, wherein the metadata provides an index of an attribute dimension group associated with each of the plurality of camera positions. (Sandri Section III B “One can view it as if there were Nc point clouds, where voxel colors are the coefficient values, all sharing the same geometry.” Examiner note: an “attribute dimension group” is being interpreted as a group of attributes of a dimension. In this reference, the point clouds with the voxel colors as coefficient values is analogous to the attribute dimension group.)
In regards to claim 29, Sandri teaches a method comprising: receiving a bitstream that comprises data representing a plurality of images, wherein each of the plurality of images was captured from one of a plurality of camera positions (Sandri Abstract “Here, we propose a compression method for such a representation. Instead of encoding a continuous function, since there is only a finite number of cameras, it makes sense to compress as many colors per voxel as cameras, and to leave any intermediary color rendering interpolation to the decoder.” Examiner note: While Sandri mainly focuses on compression of point clouds, it also teaches that these compressed point clouds will be decoded by a decoder.), and wherein the bitstream comprises indicates the plurality of camera positions and a plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions (Sandri Section III B “Therefore, we apply RAHT [14] to the colors associated with each camera (subregion), through a 2D quad-tree decomposition rather than the 3D octree… One can view it as if there were Nc point clouds, where voxel colors are the coefficient values, all sharing the same geometry. Each cloud is then transformed and encoded using the RAHT coder.” Examiner note: As described with respect to claim 21, each of the individual RGB components could reasonably be interpreted as an attribute, and therefore each voxel’s camera position has a plurality of image attributes associated with it.), wherein the metadata provides an index that enables matching of the plurality of image attributes associated with each of the plurality of camera positions with attribute values seen from a viewer position; selecting metadata based on an orientation for rendering one or more images at a decoder, wherein the rendering orientation is different from each of the plurality of camera positions; and rendering the one or more images using the selected metadata (Sandri Section 1 “For other directions beyond those sampled (captured) we can synthesize the color by interpolation. Nevertheless, view synthesis is out of the scope of this work.”).
Sandri does not teach wherein the bitstream comprises one or more SEI messages.
However, Tourapis teaches wherein the bitstream comprises one or more SEI messages (Tourapis Paragraph [0483] “In some embodiments, volumetric tiling information included in a supplementary message may take the form of a supplemental enhancement information (SEI message), named as the volumetric tiling information SEI message or volumetric annotation supplementary message.”)
Tourapis is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of compressing point cloud data. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri to include the teachings of Tourapis, to provide the benefit of a system that is able to assign characteristics to certain regions of interest (Tourapis Paragraph [0483] “Such messages may enable a signaling mechanism to identify spatial areas or regions of interest in a point cloud, such as objects or portions of a scene. Such messages may further enable characteristics to be assigned to the spatial areas or regions of interest, such as: labels, 3D bounding box information, collision shapes, whether the object/portion of a scene is visible or hidden, a priority for rendering the object/portion of the scene relative to other portions of the point cloud, relationships between objects in the point cloud, etc.”)
In regards to claim 30, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 29, further comprising: rendering the one or more images using the plurality of image attributes associated with at least one of the plurality of camera positions. (Sandri Abstract “Here, we propose a compression method for such a representation. Instead of encoding a continuous function, since there is only a finite number of cameras, it makes sense to compress as many colors per voxel as cameras, and to leave any intermediary color rendering interpolation to the decoder.” Examiner note: This shows that when the point cloud of this reference is decoded, at least one RGB value from at least one camera will be used to interpolate the desired color.)
In regards to claim 36, Sandri in view of Tourapis renders obvious the claim limitations as in the consideration of claim 29.
In regards to claim 37, Sandri in view of Tourapis renders obvious the claim limitations as in the consideration of claim 30.
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sandri in view Tourapis, and further in view of “Optimal Representation of Multi-View Video” (herein after referred to by its primary author, Volino).
In regards to claim 25, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches wherein the plurality of image attributes comprise a chroma of each of the plurality of camera positions (Sandri Section III, Equation 3 Examiner note: Each of the RGB values is for a separate camera.).
Sandri in view of Tourapis does not teach wherein the plurality of image attributes comprise a texture of each of the plurality of camera positions.
However, Volino teaches wherein the plurality of image attributes comprise a texture of each of the plurality of camera positions (Volino Section 4.1 “Given video from a set of NC camera views together with a mapping from the mesh surface M to the texture domain U, which remains constant in time due to the constant mesh topology, we can generate a set of NL [less than or equal to] NC texture layers for each timeframe t. A straightforward approach would be to map each camera to a separate texture map NL = NC”)
Volino is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating a free viewpoint rendering of a scene. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis to include the teachings of Volino, to provide the benefit of comparable visual quality with a reduction in storage/transmission costs (Volino Section 1 “Results demonstrate that the approach achieves a comparable visual quality to direct FVR from the captured multi-view video with >90% reduction in storage/transmission costs and improvements in rendering efficiency.”)
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sandri in view of Tourapis, further in view of US20220114753 (herein after referred to by its primary author, Seaton).
In regards to claim 27, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 21, but fails to teach wherein the metadata includes a flag that indicates whether a respective camera position from which an image of the plurality of images was captured is the same as a viewport position associated with the image.
However, Seaton teaches wherein the metadata includes a flag that indicates whether a respective camera position from which an image of the plurality of images was captured is the same as a viewport position associated with the image. (Seaton Paragraph [0019] “At step 204, a virtual view that corresponds to an actual view of the venue in a current field of view of the camera is obtained, for example, from existing assets comprising a specification of a virtualized version of the venue. The existing assets may comprise one or more three-dimensional polygon mesh models and/or images spanning a plurality of perspectives of the venue and/or parts thereof. In various embodiments, the virtual and actual views may comprise (substantially) the same camera pose, the same perspective of the venue, the same scene of the venue, the same scene geometry, the same scene lighting, etc.” Examiner note: This reference teaches that a virtual (rendered) view is from the same pose and perspective (analogous to position) of the actual camera.)
Seaton is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating views in a virtual space that corresponds to a real world space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis to include the teachings of Seaton, to provide the benefit of a system that can augment the virtual view of a real world space (Seaton Paragraph [0019] “In some embodiments, the virtual view comprises an alternative or augmented version of the actual view. For example, the virtual view may comprise one or more scene elements having different configurations or selectable options than the same scene elements in the actual view.”)
Claim 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sandri in view of Tourapis, and further in view of “Novel View Synthesis with Multiple 360 Images for Large-Scale 6-DOF Virtual Reality System” (herein after referred to by its primary author, Cho).
In regards to claim 28, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 21, but fails to teach wherein the metadata comprises an indicator that specifies whether a respective image attribute associated with a camera position of the plurality of camera positions is view-independent according to one or more axes or directions.
However, Cho teaches wherein the metadata comprises an indicator that specifies whether a respective image attribute associated with a camera position of the plurality of camera positions is view-independent according to one or more axes or directions. (Cho Section 2.1 “The estimated 3D geometry information includes a point cloud of the whole scene, a 3D mesh [1] based from the point cloud, and a group of camera extrinsic parameters that represents the camera pose when the 360 images were taken.” Examiner note: Sandri is different from Cho in that Sandri considers the camera angle when rendering a color for a specific voxel. Cho does not do this, and instead each voxel has one color, therefore the voxels of Cho teach view independent color attributes.)
Cho is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating novel views in a virtual space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis to include the teachings of Cho, to provide the benefit of a system that reduces image quality loss (Cho Section 1 “Our experiments have shown that the proposed method can build a large-scale 6-DOF virtual environment without the loss of image quality over distance as well as a smooth transition between each reference 360 images.”)
Claims 31, 34-35, 38, and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sandri in view of Tourapis, and further in view of US20200404247 (herein after referred to by its primary author, Haimovitch-Yogev).
In regards to claim 31, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 29, but fails to teach wherein the metadata is selected based on an angular distance between the rendering orientation and the plurality of camera positions.
However, Haimovitch-Yogev teaches wherein the metadata is selected based on an angular distance between the rendering orientation and the plurality of camera positions. (Haimovitch-Yogev Paragraph [0445] “Environment images 515 that were extracted in step 552 are blended and projected onto the environment model 223 extracted in step 552. The blending of the images is performed by weighting the angular distance of the virtual camera from the cameras that captured the background images.” Examiner note: In this reference, the virtual camera is analogous to the rendering orientation, and the environmental images are analogous to the plurality of camera positions.)
Haimovitch-Yogev is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating novel views in a virtual space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis to include the teachings of Haimovitch-Yogev, to provide the benefit of a system that more smoothly blends between colors when panning around a scene (Haimovitch-Yogev Paragraphs [0009]-[0010] “A further significant drawback is that colors are either entirely consistent, e.g., flat, or abruptly vary, e.g., jump, when the virtual rendering camera pans from one position to another. Such color issues are highly inconsistent with a viewer's normal perception. Photo-realistic results would radically extend the usability of the multi-view reconstruction to applications where currently humans are in proximity to the objects… Thus, what is desired is multi-view reconstruction that provides a photo-realistic output that effectively solves occlusion and color problems.”)
In regards to claim 34, Sandri in view of Tourapis teaches the method of claim 29, but fails to teach wherein the metadata is selected based on one or more of the plurality of camera positions, wherein rendering the one or more images using the selected metadata comprises blending image attribute values together using blending weights.
However, Haimovitch-Yogev teaches wherein the metadata is selected based on one or more of the plurality of camera positions, wherein rendering the one or more images using the selected metadata comprises blending image attribute values together using blending weights. (Haimovitch-Yogev Paragraph [0445] “Environment images 515 that were extracted in step 552 are blended and projected onto the environment model 223 extracted in step 552. The blending of the images is performed by weighting the angular distance of the virtual camera from the cameras that captured the background images.” Examiner note: In this reference the weighting is based on an angular distance between the rendering position and the actual camera position.)
Haimovitch-Yogev is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating novel views in a virtual space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis to include the teachings of Haimovitch-Yogev, to provide the benefit of a system that more smoothly blends between colors when panning around a scene (Haimovitch-Yogev Paragraphs [0009]-[0010] “A further significant drawback is that colors are either entirely consistent, e.g., flat, or abruptly vary, e.g., jump, when the virtual rendering camera pans from one position to another. Such color issues are highly inconsistent with a viewer's normal perception. Photo-realistic results would radically extend the usability of the multi-view reconstruction to applications where currently humans are in proximity to the objects… Thus, what is desired is multi-view reconstruction that provides a photo-realistic output that effectively solves occlusion and color problems.”)
In regards to claim 35, Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev teaches the method of claim 34, wherein the blending weights are based on the angular distance between the rendering orientation and the one or more of the plurality of camera positions from which metadata was selected. (Haimovitch-Yogev Paragraph [0445] “Environment images 515 that were extracted in step 552 are blended and projected onto the environment model 223 extracted in step 552. The blending of the images is performed by weighting the angular distance of the virtual camera from the cameras that captured the background images.”)
In regards to claim 38, Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev renders obvious the claim limitations as in the consideration of claim 31.
In regards to claim 40, Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev renders obvious the claim limitations as in the consideration of claims 34 and 35.
Claims 32-33 and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev, and further in view of Cho.
In regards to claim 32, Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev teaches the method of claim 31, but fails to teach wherein the selected metadata provides an indication of an image attribute associated with a camera position of the plurality of camera positions that has the smallest angular distance to the rendering orientation.
However, Cho teaches wherein the selected metadata provides an indication of an image attribute associated with a camera position of the plurality of camera positions that has the smallest angular distance to the rendering orientation. (Cho Section 2.2 “After acquiring a virtual data map of the scene, we apply our proposed novel view synthesis algorithm by referring to one or more reference images… The closest image from the novel viewpoint is selected as the reference image.” Examiner note: This reference teaches that the closest proximity camera is used to render the rendering orientation of the scene. Haimovitch-Yogev teaches using the angular distance to find the closest camera.)
Cho is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating novel views in a virtual space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev to include the teachings of Cho, to provide the benefit of a system that reduces image quality loss (Cho Section 1 “Our experiments have shown that the proposed method can build a large-scale 6-DOF virtual environment without the loss of image quality over distance as well as a smooth transition between each reference 360 images.”)
In regards to claim 33, Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev teaches the method of claim 31, but fails to teach wherein the selected metadata provides indications of image attributes associated with two or more of the camera positions of the plurality of camera positions that are within a threshold angular distance of the rendering orientation.
However, Cho teach wherein the selected metadata provides indications of image attributes associated with two or more of the camera positions of the plurality of camera positions that are within a threshold angular distance of the rendering orientation. (Cho Section 2.2 “After acquiring a virtual data map of the scene, we apply our proposed novel view synthesis algorithm by referring to one or more reference images… Unlike the method 1, the two closest images from the novel viewpoint are selected as the reference images.” Examiner note: This reference teaches using the two closest proximity cameras to render the rendering orientation of the scene. Haimovitch-Yogev teaches using the angular distance to find the closest camera.)
Cho is considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are both in the same field of creating novel views in a virtual space. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified to the system of Sandri in view of Tourapis and Haimovitch-Yogev to include the teachings of Cho, to provide the benefit of maintaining quality as the novel viewpoint moves further away from the actual camera(s) (Cho Section 3 “Figure 3 shows that the method 2 maintains the quality of the synthesized images as the novel viewpoint moves between reference views”)
In regards to claim 39, Sandri in view of Tourapis, Haimovitch-Yogev, and Cho renders obvious the claim limitations in consideration of claim 32.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
“Surface Light Field Compression Using a Point Cloud Codec” teaches performing free viewpoint rendering of multi view images and point clouds.
“Dynamic Omnidirectional Texture Synthesis for Photorealistic Virtual Content Creation” teaches rendering a free viewpoint from an RGB images, with texture.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CALEB LOGAN ESQUINO whose telephone number is (703)756-1462. The examiner can normally be reached M-Fr 8:00AM-4:00PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Bee can be reached at (571) 270-5183. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CALEB L ESQUINO/Examiner, Art Unit 2677
/ANDREW W BEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2677
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