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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 03/16/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
The action is in response to the amendment filed on March, 16th, 2026. Claims 1, 4, 12, and 18 have been amended. The amended claims limitations have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Claims 1-20 remain rejected in the application.
Response to Arguments
In response to applicant’s arguments regarding Thomas failing to disclose hard color transitions, applicant’s arguments have been fully considered but are not persuasive. Thomas is not relied upon for rejecting that limitation, but Sun is (Sun: Col. 1, Lines 33-34 “create a multi-colored mesh on which colors may flow in different directions and transition Smoothly”).
In response to applicant’s arguments regarding color clusters failing to teach different colors. Arguments fully considered but is not persuasive as the Examiner is interpreting color clusters to be multiple different colors.
Examiner reviewed the remainder of applicant’s arguments thoroughly and found the arguments fail to provide clear reasoning to why the applicant disagrees with the Examiner. The newly amended claimed features are still met by the applied prior art references. See details of the rejection below. Thus, the rejections for claims 1-20 are maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mammou et. al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0090301).
Regarding claim 18, Mammou discloses a computing device comprising [Mammou: 0007 “computing devices”]: a processing device [Mammou: 0081 “An apparatus comprising one or more processor units”]; and a computer-readable storage medium [Mammou: 0586 “computer-readable storage medium”] storing instructions that causes the processing device to perform operations including: receiving a digital image having a geometry defined using [Mammou: 0014 “a decoder system comprises one or more computing devices storing program instructions, that when executed, cause the one or more computing devices to receive a compressed bit - stream for a three dimensional mesh.”]: a vertex buffer describing a plurality of vertexes [Mammou: 0004 “Such point could may be represented by a three dimensional mesh comprising a plurality of polygons with connected vertices”], each vertex of the plurality of vertexes associated with a corresponding color value [Mammou: 0009 “Also the depth values indicated in the geometry patch, which may be represented as respective color values for the respective pixels of a geometry patch, may represent respective Z location coordinates for the vertices of the sub - mesh corresponding to the geometry patch, relative to the patch plane that go along with the corresponding X and Y location coordinates for the vertices.”](teaches every vertex is encoded once, and its X, Y, Z coordinates are stored in three color component values); at least two said vertexes sharing a location in the geometry and having different color values [Mammou: 0009 “Also the depth values indicated in the geometry patch, which may be represented as respective color values for the respective pixels of a geometry patch, may represent respective Z location coordinates for the vertices of the sub - mesh corresponding to the geometry patch , relative to the patch plane that go along with the corresponding X and Y location coordinates for the vertices . In some embodiments , X and Y coordinate values for a vertex may also be signaled as additional color values for a pixel of a geometry patch corresponding to a vertex.”][Mammou: 0016 “wherein the boundary stitching information is further used to merge vertices of adjacent sub - meshes that correspond to a same vertex in the reconstructed three - dimensional mesh.”][Mammou: 0524 “The X , Y , and Z coordinates may be signaled as color component values of pixels of geometry patch”](teaches the geometry-image attribute image pipeline produces the gradient mesh with vertex level color data, and further teaches transmitting vertex positions as color triples and later merges duplicate border vertices with the ability of choosing a color value), as defining a hard color transition [Mammou: 0380 “changed colors”]; and an index buffer defining a plurality of patches using respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer [Mammou: 0012 “to determine patch connectivity information indicating how the vertices of the geometry patches connected together to form polygons of the respective sub - meshes.”] (the “patch connectivity information” is a list of indices that reference the vertex set to assemble each patch); and rendering the digital image by constructing the geometry using the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer to form the plurality of patches [Mammou: 0568 “A renderer, can then generate the three - dimensional mesh using the geometry information G ' ( i ) and the connectivity information C ' ( i )”](teaches a rendering is performed by applying the connectivity to the geometry to reconstruct all patches before display).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1, 2, 3, and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun et al (U.S. Patent No. 8,773,423), in view of Lambert et. al (U.S. Patent No. 8,884,949).
Regarding claim 1, Sun discloses a method comprising: receiving, by a processing device, a raster (interpreted as pixel grid) digital image having a geometry (Sun: Col. 6, Lines 30-34 “At step 310, the optimized gradient mesh module 60 may receive a raster-based image.” and “At step 320, the optimized gradient mesh module 60 may receive user selected object boundaries.”)(Sun teaches receiving a raster with user selected object boundaries which corresponds to having geometry) forming, by the processing device, a plurality of patches based on the geometry (Sun: Col. 1, Lines 61-64 “the initial gradient mesh may be created by evenly distributing one or more control points over the object Such that an nxm mesh of rectangular patches is created”)(“A Ferguson patch may be defined by the following equations, where Equation 1 describes the geometry of the patch”)(Sun teaches forming patches, clearly plural, based on geometry); generating, by the processing device, a vertex buffer describing a plurality of vertexes based on the plurality of patches, each vertex of the plurality of vertexes associated with a corresponding color value (Sun: Col. 3, Lines 32-34 “For each control point in the gradient mesh, three types of variables may be interactively edited: position, partial derivatives and Red, Green, Blue (RGB) color.”), at least two said vertexes sharing a position (Sun: Col. 3, Lines 46-47 “As illustrated in FIG. 1B, within a gradient mesh, Ferguson patches may share control points 140”) and having different colors, respectively, as defining a hard color transition (Sun: Col. 1, Lines 33-34 “create a multi-colored mesh on which colors may flow in different directions and transition Smoothly”); and constructing by the processing device, a vector digital image (Sun: Title “VECTOR-BASED IMAGE”)(sun teaches vector images all throughout the reference) having the geometry using the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer to form the plurality of patches (Sun: Col. 7, Lines 35-40 “At step 340, the initial gradient mesh 430 may be rendered. The initial gradient mesh 430 may be defined as Mi-Q. Q.)p= where P equals the number of patches in the initial gradient mesh 430. Equations 1 and 2 may be used to render the initial gradient mesh 430. FIG. 4D illustrates a rendered initial gradient mesh 440.”)(Sun: Col. 10, Lines 3-7 “At step 360, the optimized gradient mesh module 60 may save the optimized gradient mesh 450 to memory and render the optimized gradient mesh 450 for display. Equations 1 and 2 may be used to render the optimized gradient mesh 450, Mopanied Q. Q."le-.”)(Sun teaches rendering of the optimized mesh necessarily consumes the vertex data (positions + colors) referenced by each patch’s Qp descriptor (the index list)), but fails to explicitly disclose generating, by the processing device, an index defining the plurality of patches using respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer.
However, Lambert discloses generating, by the processing device, an index buffer (interpreted as integer indices or an array/list stored in memory) defining the plurality of patches using respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer (Lambert: Col. 8, Lines 51-55 “The system further comprises: a vertex buffer and vertex shader; a HistoPyramid software algorithm to create an index buffer from the vertex shader; a marching squares Software algorithm to compute geometry and obtain nonblocking iso lines.”)(Lambert teaches generating creating an index buffer from the vertex).
Sun and Lambert are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical image rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun to incorporate Lambert teachings of generating and utilizing an index buffer in conjunction with a vertex buffer to define mesh patches for rendering. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of efficient memory usage and faster GPU rendering of gradient-mesh images, enhancing the users overall experience.
Regarding claim 2, Sun discloses the method as described in claim 1, that shares a location with a second said vertex from the plurality of vertexes (Sun: Col. 3, Lines 46-47 “As illustrated in FIG. 1B, within a gradient mesh, Ferguson patches may share control points 140.”) but fails to explicitly disclose wherein index buffer references a first said patch having a first said vertex from the plurality of vertexes, with a second said patch.
However, Lambert discloses wherein index buffer references a first said patch having a first said vertex from the plurality of vertexes, with a second said patch (Lambert: Col. 8, Lines 22-27 “Step 704—creating an index buffer from vertex shaders using HistoPyramid algorithm; Step 705 -computing geometry with marching squares to generate non blocky isolines; Step 706—computing normals of the mesh; and Step 707 outputting a fully computed mesh.”) (Lambert teaches generating a distinct index buffer. The buffer holds integer indices that list which vertices compose each mesh cell (corresponding to patch) and further teaches outputting a fully computed mesh meaning a second patch had to have re-used the same vertex).
Sun and Lambert are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical image rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun to incorporate Lambert teachings of generating and utilizing an index buffer in conjunction with a vertex buffer to define mesh patches. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of efficient memory usage and faster GPU rendering of gradient-mesh images, enhancing the users overall experience.
Regarding claim 3, Sun discloses the method as described in claim 2, wherein the first said vertex has a first said color value that is different than a second said color value of the second said vertex (Sun: Col. 2, Lines 48-49 “A gradient mesh may be a grid of control points in which each control point is assigned a color Such that colors may flow in different directions and transition Smoothly.”)(Sun: Col. 3, Lines 32-34 “For each control point in the gradient mesh, three types of variables may be interactively edited: position, partial derivatives and Red, Green, Blue (RGB) color.”)(Sun teaches that each point is assigned a color that may be edited).
Sun and Lambert are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical image rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun to incorporate Lambert teachings of the color of each control point may be edited independently. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of efficient memory usage, faster GPU rendering of gradient-mesh images, and the ability to assign different color values to shared vertices, enhancing the users overall experience.
Regarding claim 5, Sun discloses the method as described in claim 1, further comprising generating a plurality of segments from the raster digital image and wherein the forming the plurality of patches is based on the plurality of segments (Sun: Col. 6, Lines 42-46 “Each object boundary may consist of four segments approximating a rectangle. As described in the above para graphs, a gradient mesh may be made up of one or more Ferguson patches which may be defined by four control points, resulting in four mesh line segments”)(Sun teaches creating segments along the object boundary and then building the gradient mesh patches so their edges coincide with those segments).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun el. al (U.S. Patent No. 8,773,423), in view of Lambert et. al (U.S. Patent No. 8,884,949), in further view of Thomas G. et. al (U.S. Patent No. 10,217,272).
Regarding claim 4, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 1, as defining the hard color transition in the vector digital image without adding an additional set of vertexes (Sun: Col. 1, Lines 33-34 “create a multi-colored mesh on which colors may flow in different directions and transition Smoothly”) but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the vertex buffer references at least two said vertexes that share a position and have different colors.
However, Thomas G. discloses wherein the vertex buffer references at least two said vertexes that share a position and have different colors (Thomas G: Col. 1, Lines 20-21 “A simple example is a triangle with two vertices having the same position, as it has zero area.”)(Thomas G: Col. 4, Lines 22 “color clusters”).
Sun, Lambert, and Thomas G. are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Thomas G.’s teachings of vertex buffer may legitimately contain two distinct vertex records having the identical position. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of efficient memory usage, faster GPU rendering of gradient-mesh images, and the flexibility to assign different per-vertex attributes such as color at a shared location, thereby enhancing the user’s overall experience.
Claims 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun etal (U.S. Patent No. 8,773,423), in view of Lambert et. al (U.S. Patent No. 8,884,949), in further view of Mammou et. al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0090301).
Regarding claim 6, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the generating the index buffer includes combining a first said vertex and a second said vertex that share a location in the geometry and a color value.
However, Mammou discloses wherein the generating the index buffer includes combining a first said vertex and a second said vertex [Mammou: 0016 “wherein the boundary stitching information is further used to merge vertices of adjacent sub”](teaches combining vertices) that share a location in the geometry [Mammou: 0016 “meshes that correspond to a same vertex in the reconstructed three - dimensional mesh.”](teaches that are in the same vertex in the dimensional mesh which corresponds to the location in the geometry) and a color value [Mammou: 0009 “which may be represented as respective color values for the respective pixels of a geometry patch”].
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of using boundary-stitching information to merge vertices that correspond to the same spatial point and carry identical attribute/color data. The motivation for such a combination is to eliminate redundant vertices at patch boundaries, thereby reducing memory bandwidth and improving rendering/decoding efficiency without altering visual fidelity.
Regarding claim 7, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the generating the index buffer includes adjusting at least one vertex in the index buffer.
However, Mammou discloses wherein the generating the index buffer includes adjusting at least one vertex in the index buffer [Mammou: 0256 “The boundary points may have their positions / attribute / texture updated.”](Mammou teaches the ability to update which corresponds to adjusting).
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of the ability to update attributes. The motivation for such a combination is to ensure seamless alignment between adjacent mesh patches improving rendering efficiency.
Regarding claim 8, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 7, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the adjusting includes adjusting a location of the at least one said vertex and comparing a result of the adjusting with the digital image.
However, Mammou discloses wherein the adjusting includes adjusting a location of the at least one said vertex and comparing a result of the adjusting with the digital image [Mammou: 0321 “The texture points of the original geometry image frame 550 are then mapped to the points of the reconstructed up - scaled geometry plane 556. Differences in locations of the points in the original geometry image frame and the re - constructed up - scaled geometry image frame are determined . Also, the points included in the geometry image frame 550 are adjusted to take into account distortion that may be introduced during the down - scaling , video compression, video - de - compression, and up - scaling processes”](Mammou teaches the encoder adjusts the positions of vertices and compares those adjusted positions to the original geometry image frame to determine the positional differences).
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of adjusting vertex locations during index buffer generation and comparing the updated mesh against the source geometry image. The motivation for such a combination is to minimize geometric error between the encoded mesh and the original image data, thereby lowering subsequent correction effort.
Regarding claim 9, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 7, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the adjusting includes adjusting a color value of the at least one said vertex and comparing a result of the adjusting with the digital image.
However, Mammou discloses wherein the adjusting includes adjusting a color value of the at least one said vertex [Mammou: 0321 “Additionally , this distortion may be taken into account by a point cloud compression ( PCC ) attribute / texture mapper to adjust texture values for points that are distorted during the down - scaling , video - compression , video - de - compression , and up - scaling process .”] (teaches adjusting the texture values which corresponds to color value) and comparing a result of the adjusting with the digital image [Mammou: 0263 “In order to account for such distortions , a texture/attribute image color space conversion and re - sampling module , such as module 416 , may take into account a difference between the “ re - created ” color values from re coloring module 416 and the original color values from the original non - compressed reference point cloud when determining color conversion parameters for converting an image frame from a first color space , such as R'G'B'4 : 4 : 4 to YCbCr 4 : 2 : 0 , for example.”](teaches comparing the adjusted “re-created” color values with the original image).
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of adjusting texture values during construction and immediately comparing the updated color data. The motivation for such a combination is to match reconstructed colors to source imagery, thereby improving compression accuracy and minimizing subsequent color correction effort.
Regarding claim 10, Sun discloses the method as described in claim 9, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the adjusting causes a merging of the at least one said vertex and another said vertex of the vertex buffer as a single said vertex having a color value based on a color value of the at least one said vertex and a color value of the another said vertex.
However, Mammou discloses wherein the adjusting causes a merging of the at least one said vertex and another said vertex of the vertex buffer as a single said vertex [Mammou: 0555 “During this process one or multiple vertices are merged together to generate a single vertex.”] having a color value based on a color value of the at least one said vertex and a color value of the another said vertex [0251 “e. At this stage , the color and attribute information is transferred from current frame CF to RF ' by exploiting the following formula where A stands for the texture or attribute to be transferred , IP ( Q ) is the number of elements of p ( Q )”] (teaches that a color attribute can be transferred explicitly disclosing the limitation that a single vertex can have a color value based off another vertex’s color).
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of merging two vertices that occupy the same location into a single vertex and computing that vertex’s color values of the original vertices during index-buffer construction. The motivation for such a combination is to eliminate redundant data, cut memory and bandwidth requirements, and ensure seamless continuity across patch boundaries, thereby improving rendering efficiency and visual fidelity while reducing subsequent cleanup effort.
Regarding claim 11, Sun and Lambert discloses the method as described in claim 1, but fail to explicitly disclose further comprising rendering a gradient of color values for a respective said patch based on color values defined for respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer.
However, Mammou discloses further comprising rendering a gradient of color values for a respective said patch based on color values defined for respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer [Mammou: 0016 “the program instructions may cause the one or more computing devices to interpolate texture or attribute values for interior points of a polygon of a respective sub - mesh based on texture or attribute values determined for vertices of the polygon”] (teaches interpolating texture (color) values inside each polygon (patch) using the per-vertex values).
Sun, Lambert, and Mammou are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Sun and Lambert to incorporate Mammou’s teachings of interpolating per-vertex texture values across each mesh polygon to render a smooth gradient within every patch. The motivation for such a combination is to visually continuous shading thereby improving rendering quality and efficiency.
Claims 12-17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mammou et. al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0090301), in view of Sun et al. (U.S. Patent No. 8,773,423).
Regarding claim 12, Mammou discloses a system comprising: a mesh initialization module implemented by a processing device to generate a plurality of patches based on a geometry [Mammou: 0561 “a patch generation module 1502 of a mesh encoder 1500 receives geometry information G ( i ) for a three - dimensional mesh that is to be encoded and connectivity information C ( i ) indicating how the vertices of the geometry information G ( i ) connect together to form polygons of the three - dimensional mesh that is to be encoded.”](Mammou teaches a patch generation module that corresponds to the mesh initialization module, it operates in a processor, ingests mesh geometry, and outputs multiple geometry attribute patches); a mesh generation module implemented by the processing device to generate a vector digital image as a gradient mesh based on the plurality of patches, the gradient mesh having a plurality of vertexes and a plurality of color values, at least two said vertexes sharing a location in the geometry and having different color values [Mammou: 0009 “Also the depth values indicated in the geometry patch, which may be represented as respective color values for the respective pixels of a geometry patch, may represent respective Z location coordinates for the vertices of the sub - mesh corresponding to the geometry patch , relative to the patch plane that go along with the corresponding X and Y location coordinates for the vertices . In some embodiments , X and Y coordinate values for a vertex may also be signaled as additional color values for a pixel of a geometry patch corresponding to a vertex.”][Mammou: 0016 “wherein the boundary stitching information is further used to merge vertices of adjacent sub - meshes that correspond to a same vertex in the reconstructed three - dimensional mesh.”][Mammou: 0524 “The X , Y , and Z coordinates may be signaled as color component values of pixels of geometry patch”](teaches the geometry-image attribute image pipeline produces the gradient mesh with vertex level color data, and further teaches transmitting vertex positions as color triples and later merges duplicate border vertices with the ability of choosing a color value); and a rendering module implemented by the processing device to render the gradient mesh of the vector digital image [Mammou: 0568 “A renderer, can then generate the three - dimensional mesh using the geometry information G ' ( i ) and the connectivity information C ' ( i ) and further apply the texture or attribute values to the mesh using the texture coordinates T ' ( i ) and texture connectivity CT ' ( i ) to map attribute or texture values in the attribute images A ' ( i ) to vertices of the reconstructed three - dimensional mesh.”] (teaches that the render reconstructs and display’s the mesh using previously generate geometry and attributes), but fails to explicitly disclose of a raster digital image, as defining a hard color transition in the gradient mesh.
However, Sun discloses of a raster digital image (Sun: Abstract “A method for creating an optimized gradient mesh of a vector-based image from a raster-based image”), as defining a hard color transition in the gradient mesh (Sun: Col. 1, Lines 33-34 “create a multi-colored mesh on which colors may flow in different directions and transition Smoothly”).
Mammou and Sun are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Mammou to incorporate Sun’s teachings of generating a vector image from a raster image. The motivation for such a combination is to obtain a scalable version of the raster image.
Regarding claim 13, Mammou and Sun disclose the system as described in claim 12, wherein a first said vertex of the least two said vertexes has a first said color value that is different than a second said color value of a second said vertex of the at least two said vertexes [Mammou: 0003 “Also, such systems may further capture attribute information in addition to spatial information for the respective points, such as color information ( e.g. RGB values ), texture information, intensity attributes, reflectivity attributes, motion related attributes, modality attribute , or various other attributes”](teaches that separately, attributes/texture data supplies actual RGB color values. Because both kinds of color components are attached to vertices that the boundary stitching step later merges, the first vertex and the second vertex inherently hold different color values even though they occupy the same location)[Mammou: 0524 “The X , Y , and Z coordinates may be signaled as color component values of pixels of geometry patch, such a R , G , B values or Y , Cb , Cr values associated with pixels of a geometry patch that correspond to vertices in a sub - mesh.”](teaches that every geometry patch vertex already stores one set of RGB-encoded values) that share the location in the geometry [Mammou: 0016 “wherein the boundary stitching information is further used to merge vertices of adjacent sub - meshes that correspond to a same vertex in the reconstructed three - dimensional mesh.”](teaches that after decoding, the system recognizes different sub-mesh vertices that occupy the same position and therefore must be stitched/merged).
Regarding claim 14, Mammou and Sun disclose the system as described in claim 12, wherein the mesh generation module is configured to generate: a vertex buffer including the plurality of vertexes and the plurality of color values [Mammou 0535 “patch geometry PG ( i , j ) is defined as the positions of the subset of vertices belonging to patch P ( i , j ) , where P ( ij ) is the “ jih ” patch of image “ i . ” . Let N ( i , j ) be the number of vertices belonging to patch P ( ij ) . The vertices positions are defined in a local coordinates system defined with respect to the 3D bounding box of the patch.”](teaches that patch stores a continuous list of vertex positions. Clearly teaching a plurality of vertexes or “vertices”) [Mammou: 0524 “The X , Y , and Z coordinates may be signaled as color component values of pixels of geometry patch , such a R , G , B values or Y , Cb , Cr values associated with pixels of a geometry patch that correspond to vertices in a sub - mesh.”](teaches that each vertex’s three coordinates are packed into 3 colored channel values inside the same data structure, so with every vertex, there is color associated with it so since there is a plurality of vertices, there is a plurality of color); and an index buffer defining the plurality of patches using respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer [Mammou: 0537 “In some embodiments , patch connectivity PC ( ij ) is defined as the subset of faces belonging to patch P ( ij ) . Here , the indices are re - indexed to 0 ... N ( i , j ) -1 , where N ( i , j ) is the number of vertices of P ( ij )”](discloses creating a PC(i,j) table whose indices point into the vertex list to say which vertices form each face of every patch – the textbook definition of an index buffer. Because PC(i,j) is a dedicated structure of indices referencing the vertices generated in PG(i,j), it defines the plurality of patches using respective said vertexes from the vertex buffer).
Regarding claim 15, Mammou and Sun disclose the system as described in claim 12, further comprising a post-processing module configured to adjust at least one vertex [Mammou: 0555 “During this process one or multiple vertices are merged together to generate a single vertex.”][Mammou: 0256 “b . The boundary points may have their positions / attribute / texture updated. More precisely , respective boundary points may be assigned a smoothed position based on its R nearest neighbors in the point cloud . The smoothed position may be the centroid / median of the nearest neighbors”](clearly teaches the ability to update a vertex which corresponds to adjusting at least one vertex. The quoted “reconstruction…and smoothing” step is the claimed post processing module. It explicitly alters vertices by either merging duplicates into one or shifting a vertex to a new centroid position).
Regarding claim 16, Mammou and Sun disclose the system as described in claim 15, wherein the post-processing module is configured to: adjust a location of the at least one said vertex [Mammou: 0256 “b . The boundary points may have their positions / attribute / texture updated. More precisely, respective boundary points may be assigned a smoothed position based on its R nearest neighbors in the point cloud.”](teaches that the boundary points or “location” may be updated which corresponds to “adjusted”. Also mentions attribute/texture so color may also be updated/adjusted) and compare a result of the adjusting with the digital image; or adjust a color value of the at least one said vertex and comparing a result of the adjusting with the digital image [Mammou: 0271 “In particular, overall texture distortion may be computed by first determining for each point in the original and reconstructed point clouds their closest point in the reconstructed and original point clouds respectively.”](clearly teaches comparing results with the original).
Regarding claim 17, Mammou and Sun disclose the system as described in claim 12, further comprising a post-processing module configured to merge at least one said vertex and another said vertex as a single said vertex [Mammou: 0555 “During this process one or multiple vertices are merged together to generate a single vertex.”] having a color value based on a color value of the at least one said vertex and a color value of the another said vertex [Mammou: 0009 “Also the depth values indicated in the geometry patch , which may be represented as respective color values for the respective pixels of a geometry patch , may represent respective Z location coordinates for the vertices of the sub - mesh corresponding to the geometry patch, relative to the patch plane that go along with the corresponding X and Y location coordinates for the vertices . In some embodiments , X and Y coordinate values for a vertex may also be signaled as additional color values for a pixel of a geometry patch corresponding to a vertex.”] [Mammou: 0286-0287 “Note that R ( Q + ( 1 ) ) , G ( Q + ( i ) ) , and B ( Q * ( i ) ) correspond to the average RGB values of the points of Q + ( i ) . The final RGB values R ( Prec ( i ) ) , G ( Prec ( i ) ) , and B ( Prec ( i ) ) , are obtained by applying the following linear interpolation : R ( Prec ( i ) ) = wR ( Q + ( t ) ) + ( 1 - w ) R ( Q * ( t ) ) G ( Prec ( i ) ) = wR ( Q + ( ( ) ) + ( 1 - w ) G ( Q * ( i ) ) B ( Prec ( ) = wR ( Q + 7 ) + ( 1 - w ) B ( O * 0 )”] (clearly teaches the color value is based on a corresponding vertex).
Regarding claim 20, Mammou discloses the computing device as described in claim 18, but fails to explicitly disclose comprising generating the digital image as a vector digital image from a raster digital image.
However, Sun discloses comprising generating the digital image as a vector digital image from a raster digital image (Sun: Abstract “A method for creating an optimized gradient mesh of a vector-based image from a raster-based image.”)(this entire reference teaches this exact limitation).
Mammou and Sun are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Mammou to incorporate Sun’s teachings of generating a vector image from a raster image. The motivation for such a combination is to obtain a scalable version of the raster image.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mammou et. al (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0090301), in view of Lambert et. al (U.S. Patent No. 8,884,949).
Regarding claim 19, Mammou discloses the computing device as described in claim 18, wherein the rendering includes rendering a gradient of color values for a respective said patch based on color values defined for respective said vertexes [Mammou: 0016 “the program instructions may cause the one or more computing devices to interpolate texture or attribute values for interior points of a polygon of a respective sub - mesh based on texture or attribute values determined for vertices of the polygon”] (teaches interpolating texture (color) values inside each polygon (patch) using the per-vertex values) but fails to explicitly disclose from the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer.
However, Lambert discloses from the vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer (Lambert: Col. 8, Lines 51-53 “The system further comprises: a vertex buffer and vertex shader; a HistoPyramid software algorithm to create an index buffer from the vertex shader).
Mammou and Lambert are considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of graphical mesh construction and rendering. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Mammou to incorporate Lambert’s teachings of vertex buffer as indexed by the index buffer. The motivation for such a combination is to obtain smoother, more realistic color gradients across Mammou’s vertex and index-buffer mesh for improved visual quality.
Conclusion
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/AHMED TAHA/Examiner, Art Unit 2613
/XIAO M WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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