DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/07/2024 has been made record of and considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities: The claims recite lists, the candidates of which the Examiner has interpreted to be optional based on ‘or.’ However, the lists are recited as “; or” which creates ambiguity as to whether the intended meaning is ‘and/or,’ or simply ‘or.’ If the intended meaning is simply ‘or’, the Examiner respectfully recommends an adjustment such as ‘, or’. Appropriate correction/clarification is required.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-5 and 8-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bærentzen (“Signed Distance Computation Using the Angle Weighted Pseudonormal”), in further view of Eckart (US 2017/0249401 A1).
Consider claims 1, 10, and 18, Bærentzen discloses a method/system comprising:
one or more processing units to (1, 1.1, ‘way of representing 3D objects in computers’):
determining, for a polygon of a plurality of polygons associated with a surface mesh, that a first point located in an area enclosed by the polygon is positioned at a minimum distance between a second point associated with a query and any point in the area enclosed by the polygon (1.1 Overview; “the angle weighted pseudonormal can discriminate between points that are inside and points that are outside a triangle mesh or polyhedron1. [1. In the following, we will use the two terms interchangeably.] … Occlusion queries are used to cull away features that cannot contribute to the distance field and the maximum extent of the contribution of a feature is bounded using observations regarding spatial coherence”; Angle Weighted Pseudonormal; p on surface);
determining, based at least on the determining the first point is positioned at the minimum distance, a weight associated with the first point;
determining a weighted normal based at least on the weight;
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4.1 A Concrete Algorithm; “During initialization, the vertex and edge normals are computed for each triangle. Then, the triangles are stored in a hierarchy of bounding boxes.”
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4.1; “The sign is computed based on the normal at the closest feature and the vector from the closest point to the query point.”
determining, based at least on the weighted normal, whether the second point is located outside of a volume enclosed by the surface mesh; and
While acknowledging culling points determined to be outside, as they do not contribute, (Bærentzen 1.1, 4.1), Bærentzen fails to explicitly disclose rendering an image of an object represented by the surface mesh based at least on the determining whether the second point is located outside of the volume enclosed by the surface mesh.
In related art, Eckart discloses:
one or more processing units (¶149-151) to:
rendering an image of an object represented by the surface mesh based at least on the determining whether the second point is located outside of the volume enclosed by the surface mesh (Eckart ¶74; Any geometric primitive entirely outside of the viewing frustum may be culled (i.e., discarded) because the geometric primitive will not contribute to the final rendered scene. Any geometric primitive that is partially inside the viewing frustum and partially outside the viewing frustum may be clipped (i.e., transformed into a new geometric primitive that is enclosed within the viewing frustum … All potentially visible geometric primitives are then transmitted to the rasterization stage 660.” ¶68, 129; “The model data defines each of the objects that may be visible on a display. The application then makes an API call to the driver kernel that requests the model data to be rendered and displayed”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to incorporate the rasterization and rendering of Eckart into the inside/outside determination method of Bærentzen to render an image of an object based on whether a given point is located outside of the volume enclosed by the surface mesh. As stated by Bærentzen, “Occlusion queries are used to cull away features that cannot contribute to the distance field and the maximum extent of the contribution of a feature is bounded using observations regarding spatial coherence (Bærentzen 1.1).” Eckart further states that “Any geometric primitive entirely outside of the viewing frustum may be culled (i.e., discarded) because the geometric primitive will not contribute to the final rendered scene (Eckart ¶74).”
Consider claims 2 and 11, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein the determining the weight comprises one of:
determining, based at least on the first point being located at a vertex of the polygon, a first weight associated with the first point (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 3 Proof);
determining, based at least on the first point being located along an edge of the polygon, a second weight associated with the first point (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 2.1 Other Pseudonormals, 3 Proof); or
determining, based at least on the first point being located on a face of the polygon, a third weight associated with the first point (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 2.1 Other Pseudonormals, 3 Proof).
Consider claims 3 and 12, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention further comprising one of:
determining that the first point is located at the vertex based at least on a first distance between the vertex and the second point being within a threshold distance (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 3, 4);
determining that the first point is located along the edge based at least on a second distance between the edge and the second point being within the threshold distance (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 3, 4); or
determining that the first point is located on the face based at least on the first distance and the second distance being equal to or greater than the threshold distance (Bærentzen 2 Angle Weighted Pseudonormal, 3, 4).
Consider claim 4, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention further comprising:
determining, based at least on the minimum distance and a current minimum distance associated with a third point located in an area enclosed by a second polygon of the plurality of polygons, that the first point is closer to the second point than the third point (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof),
wherein the determining the weight is based at least on determining the first point is closer to the second point than the third point (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof).
Consider claim 5, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention further comprising:
determining that the minimum distance is greater than a threshold distance from a current minimum distance associated with a third point located in an area enclosed by a second polygon of the plurality of polygons (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof, 4.2),
wherein the determining the weighted normal comprises determining, based at least on the minimum distance being greater than the threshold distance from the current minimum distance, the weighted normal based at least on the weight and a surface normal associated with the polygon (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof, 4.2).
Consider claims 8 and 15, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention further comprising determining the plurality of polygons associated with the surface mesh based at least on traversing a bounding volume hierarchy associated with the surface mesh (Bærentzen 4.1-4.3).
Consider claims 9 and 16, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein the determining whether the second point is located outside of the surface mesh comprises:
determining a value based at least on the weighted normal, one or more first coordinates associated with the first point, and one or more second coordinates associated with the second point (Bærentzen 2, 3 Theorem 1); and
one of:
determining that the second point is located within a volume enclosed by the surface mesh based at least on the value including a negative value (Bærentzen 2 Eq. 3-5, 3 Theorem 1); or
determining that the second point is located outside of the volume enclosed by the surface mesh based at least on the value including a positive value (Bærentzen 2 Eq. 3-5, 3 Theorem 1).
Consider claim 13, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein the one or more processing units are further to:
compute one or more surface normals associated with the one or more polygons (Introduction; surface normal; 2, 3 Proof),
wherein the determination of the weighted normal is further based at least on the one or more surface normal (3 Proof).
Consider claim 14, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein:
the one or more polygons includes two or more polygons (Bærentzen 2);
the one or more points include two or more points associated with a closest point located in an area enclosed by the two or more polygons (Bærentzen 2, 3); and
the determination of the weighted normal comprises determining the weighted normal based at least on two or more weights associated with the two or more points and two or more surface normals associated with the two or more polygons (Bærentzen 2, 3).
Consider claims 17 and 20, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein the system is comprised in at least one of:
a control system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;
a perception system for an autonomous or semi-autonomous machine;
a system for performing simulation operations;
a system for performing digital twin operations;
a system for performing light transport simulation;
a system for performing collaborative content creation for 3D assets;
a system for performing deep learning operations;
a system implemented using an edge device (Eckart ¶157);
a system implemented using a robot;
a system for performing conversational Al operations;
a system implementing one or more large language models (LLMs);
a system for generating synthetic data;
a system incorporating one or more virtual machines (VMs);
a system implemented at least partially in a data center (Eckart ¶156); or
a system implemented at least partially using cloud computing resources (Eckart ¶156-157).
[¶Bærentzen 2; “Point cloud data is utilized in a variety of applications, and point cloud data is especially important in many spatial perception applications such as augmented reality, scene visualization, and robot navigation.” The system may be used in any such environment, because the underlying hardware is conventional.]
Consider claim 19, Bærentzen, as modified by Eckart, discloses the claimed invention wherein the one or more processing units are further to:
determine one or more weights associated with one or more points located in an area enclosed by the one or more polygons, the one or more points being associated with the closest point (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof),
wherein the determination of the weighted normal is further based at least on the one or more weights (Bærentzen 2, 3 Proof).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten (1) in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims and (2) to overcome the above objection.
Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Guezlec, (‘"Meshsweeper": dynamic point-to-polygonal mesh distance and applications’).
US2009/0167763A1 discloses quasi-Monte Carlo light transport simulation by efficient ray tracing.
CN116310119A discloses an adaptive distance field construction method based on BVH.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ASHLEY HYTREK whose telephone number is (703)756-4562. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00-5:00.
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/ASHLEY HYTREK/ Examiner, Art Unit 2665
/Stephen R Koziol/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2665