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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed February 3rd 2026 has been entered. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application. Applicant’s amendments to the Claims 1, 11, and 20 have overcome the rejections previously set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed November 3rd 2025. A second search has been performed to address the material amended in the aforementioned claims. Newly found reference Moon (US 20170319308 A1) was used for the newly amended claim limitations.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 5, 10, 11, 15, and 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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, 5, 11, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hladky (US 20200327713 A1) in view of Moon (US 20170319308 A1).
Regarding claim 1:
Hladky teaches:
A model processing method, comprising:
obtaining model information of a three-dimensional model (Hladky: a potentially visible set (PVS) of polygons (triangles) is determined in real-time using graphics data comprising polygons (triangles) and a current camera view as inputs [0025]) and one or more view angles corresponding to views of the three-dimensional model (Hladky: According to the invention, the 3D model data is obtained by the server, based on a given multitude of possible views, Abstract);
determining one or more visible model regions corresponding to each of the one or more view angles of the three-dimensional model based on the model information (Hladky: PVS for a 3D region can also be computed from multiple 2D regions, especially when considering camera rotations: For a cuboid cell, the visibility can be constructed for all six bounding planes [0026]; see Note 1A);
determining a combined visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model based on the one or more visible model regions corresponding to the one or more view angles (Hladky: the PVS for all fragments of all rendered views are to be merged [0104]; see Note 1B); and
generating a processed three-dimensional model based on the combined visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model (Hladky: In step 610, a potentially visible set of polygons is constructed, based on graphics data comprising polygons (triangles) and a current camera view, using multitude of potential camera/view offsets, [0099]), wherein the processed three-dimensional model does not include a region outside of the visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model (Hladky: only those polygons potentially needed for rendering must be delivered to the client before they are needed [0011]; see Note 1C).
Note 1A: Hladky teaches that a PVS (potentially visible set) may be determined for each of the six bounding planes of a cuboid cell, by aligning a camera with each bounding plane in [0026] above. In other words, Hladky teaches determining one or more visible model regions (the potentially visible set) corresponding to one or more view angles (the camera angles when aligned with the cuboid planes) of a three-dimensional model based on the model information (graphics data, for example as cited in [0025] above).
Note 1B: Hladky teaches that the potentially visible sets previously determined may be merged to “be stored in a single buffer and resolved in a single step” [0104]. That is, the Hladky teaches generating a merged potentially visible set based on the one or more potentially visible sets previously determined.
Note 1C: Hladky teaches that “only those polygons potentially needed for rendering must be delivered to the client before they are needed,” [0011]. Therefore, when generating a potentially visible set of polygons, any polygons that are not in the set of visible polygons would be excluded.
Hladky fails to teach:
determining one or more visible model regions corresponding to each of the one or more view angles of the three-dimensional model based on the model information, a visible model region of the one or more visible model regions corresponding to a kth view angle of the one or more view angles being determined based on a rotated three-dimensional model corresponding to a predefined view angle, the rotated three-dimensional model being obtained by (i) rotating the three-dimensional model by a first angle in an x-axis direction and (ii) rotating the three- dimensional model by a second angle in a y-axis direction according to the model information;
Moon teaches:
determining one or more visible model regions (see Note 1D) corresponding to each of the one or more view angles of the three-dimensional model based on the model information (Moon: the data processor 120 is configured to generate three-dimensional tooth data for producing a three-dimensional tooth image by receiving the intraoral shape information or the model shape information from the optical three-dimensional measurement unit 110 [0027]), a visible model region of the one or more visible model regions corresponding to a kth view angle of the one or more view angles being determined based on a rotated three-dimensional model corresponding to a predefined view angle (Moon: the combined model scanning and oral cavity scanning apparatus may further include a model scanning tip configured to be set for a measurement area of the model shape information [0008]; see Note 1C), the rotated three-dimensional model being obtained by (i) rotating the three-dimensional model by a first angle in an x-axis direction and (ii) rotating the three-dimensional model by a second angle in a y-axis direction according to the model information (Moon: the dental model 1200 is mounted to the disc of the rotating unit 420, the disc is moved in the rotation direction, the x-axis direction, and the y-axis direction, [0039]);
Note 1D: The Examiner submits that “generat[ing] three-dimensional tooth data for producing a three-dimensional tooth image by receiving the intraoral shape information or the model shape information from the optical three-dimensional measurement unit” (cited above) inherently requires determining one or more visible model regions, because in order to create a 3D model of the tooth, the measurement system must determine what part of the tooth is visible by the scanner.
Note 1E: Moon teaches in paragraphs [0006 – 0008] that at least three different measurement areas may be scanned by a model scanning tip.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Moon with Hladky. Scanning the model by rotating the model on an x-axis and y-axis, as in Moon, would benefit the Hladky teachings by ensuring that the view angles capture the each portion of the model: “the disc is moved in the rotation direction, the x-axis direction, and the y-axis direction, along with the dental model 1200, whereby the optical three-dimensional measurement unit 110 is capable of measuring the all parts of the dental model 1200.” (Moon, [0039]).
Regarding claim 5:
Hladky in view of Moon teaches:
The method according to claim 1 (as shown above), wherein the determining the combined visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model comprises:
determining, when the one or more view angles include one view angle, a visible model region corresponding to the view angle as the visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model (see Note 5A);
obtaining, when the one or more view angles include at least two view angles, a visible region that corresponds to each view angle and that is of an ith triangle mesh in the three-dimensional model, i being 1, 2, ..., or N, N being an integer greater than 1, and N being a total number of triangle meshes in the three-dimensional model (see Note 5A);
merging visible regions that correspond to the at least two view angles and that are of the ith triangle mesh in the three-dimensional model to obtain a merged visible region corresponding to the ith triangle mesh (Hladky: The idea of occluder fusion is commonly used for entire objects during PVS construction. The invention proposes an efficient version for triangles that is applicable to the COS, i.e., merge triangles into a larger connected polygon in the COS [0065]); and
determining merged visible regions corresponding to a first triangle mesh to an Nth triangle mesh as the combined visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model (Hladky: The idea of occluder fusion is commonly used for entire objects during PVS construction [0065]; see Note 5B).
Note 5A: In Note 1A, it was shown that Hladky teaches determining a visible model region corresponding to the view angle as the visible model region corresponding to the three-dimensional model. Hladky teaches: “The creation of the PVS involves the combination of multiple 2D COS evaluations for up to six rasterized views.” [0101] (emphasis added). That is, Hladky may generate visible model regions based on one to six camera views. If there is one view, it follows that the visible model region will be based off of one view, and if there are two or more views, it follows that more than one visible model region will be generated and combined to generate a combined potentially visible set.
Hladky teaches that each potentially visible set or “visible model region” is comprised of triangles: “a potentially visible set (PVS) of polygons (triangles)” [0025]. Therefore, the visible region taught by Hladky “is of an ith triangle mesh in the three-dimensional model, i being 1, 2, ..., or N, N being an integer greater than 1, and N being a total number of triangle meshes in the three-dimensional model”.
Note 5B: As best understood by the Examiner, in [0065] Hladky teaches that the “occluders” may be fused to generate larger connected polygons for PVS construction. That is, a merged visible region or PVS may be determined based on the fusion of occluding triangles.
Note that occluders are understood to be triangles of the 3D model, because Hladky teaches: “a first triangle QΔ is transferred to COS (a) and kept as potential occluder OΔ,0 (b)” [0071].
Regarding claim 11:
Claim 11 is substantially similar to claim 1, and is therefore rejected for similar reasons. Claim 11 contains the following notable differences:
Claim 11 claims an apparatus instead of a method. Hladky teaches a apparatus comprising processing circuitry: (Hladky: An implementation of the complete PVS computation for current GPUs is provided [0012])
Regarding claim 15:
Claim 15 is substantially similar to claim 5, and is therefore rejected for similar reasons. Claim 15 contains the following notable differences:
Claim 15 claims an apparatus instead of a method. In the rejection of claim 15, it was shown that {name} teaches a apparatus.
Regarding claim 20:
Claim 20 is substantially similar to claim 1, and is therefore rejected for similar reasons. Claim 20 contains the following notable differences:
Claim 20 claims a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium instead of a method. Hladky teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (Hladky: Triangle data is stored in shared memory [0107]; see Note 20A) storing computer-readable instructions (Hladky: The triangle fusion approach can rely on efficient warp-wide communication primitives such as register shuffle instructions [0107]; see Note 20A) thereon, which, when executed by processing circuitry (Hladky: An implementation of the complete PVS computation for current GPUs is provided [0012]; see Note 20A), cause the processing circuitry to perform a model processing method comprising:
Note 20A: Storing triangle data in memory while using a graphical processing unit (GPU; as cited in [0012] above) requires a computer-readable storage medium. Similarly, utilizing “register shuffle instructions” as taught by Hladky also requires utilizing said memory to store the instructions to be executed.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hladky (US 20200327713 A1) in view of Moon (US 20170319308 A1) and Cheng (CN 108765549 A).
Hladky in view of Moon teaches:
The method according to claim 1 (as shown above),
Hladky in view of Moon fails to teach:
wherein the processed three-dimensional model is a training model for training a neural network.
Cheng teaches:
wherein the processed three-dimensional model is a training model for training a neural network (Cheng: using the three-dimensional model and its corresponding image composed of the training data set to train the three dimensional image rendering model, Pg. 3, par. 5).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Cheng with Hladky in view of Moon. Using the processed three-dimensional model as a training model for training a neural network, as in Cheng, would benefit the Hladky in view of Moon teachings by enabling the neural network to learn the shape of the model and render it accurately from arbitrary angles: “based on multi-angle images or video splicing not only cannot display the product in the continuous change of the viewpoint, but also needs a special photographing apparatus. three-dimensional display special purpose device convenience and cost and other factors such that it is not suitable for a lot of small and medium or small micro enterprise; on the other hand, of the product will display the user sees the image discontinuous and jitter caused by if not using the special shooting device” (Cheng, Pg. 2, par. 4).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 2:
Hladky in view of Moon teaches:
The method according to claim 1 (as shown above), wherein the determining the one or more visible model regions corresponding to each of the one or more view angles comprises:
Hladky in view of Moon fails to explicitly teach:
determining the first angle and the second angle corresponding to the kth view angle, k being a positive integer greater than or equal to 1;
rotating, based on the model information, the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle in the x-axis direction, and then rotating the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the second angle in the y-axis direction, to obtain the rotated three-dimensional model corresponding to a bottom view angle;
determining, based on the rotated three-dimensional model, a three-dimensional lowest envelope of the three-dimensional model at a first view angle and a two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional lowest envelope, the two-dimensional projection comprising at least one projection face;
determining a visible region corresponding to each projection face, and determining, based on the visible region corresponding to each projection face, a visible region comprised in each triangle mesh in the three-dimensional lowest envelope; and
rotating the visible region corresponding to each triangle mesh clockwise by the second angle in the y-axis direction, and then rotating the visible region corresponding to each triangle mesh clockwise by the first angle in the x-axis direction, to obtain the visible model region corresponding to the kth view angle of the three-dimensional model.
Xi (US 20210118158 A1) teaches:
determining a first angle corresponding to a kth view angle, k being a positive integer greater than or equal to 1 (Xi: rotating the three-dimensional model of the face by a first angle [0006]);
rotating, based on the model information (Xi: rotating the three-dimensional model of the face by a first angle [0006]), the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle in an x-axis direction, and then
Castillo (WO 2021155246 A1) teaches:
determining a first angle and a second angle corresponding to a kth view angle, k being a positive integer greater than or equal to 1 (Castillo: the computer-implemented method can include capturing a first 2D image of a physical structure from a first pose. […] The computer-implemented method can include capturing a second 2D image depicting the physical structure from a second pose [0010]);
determining, based on the rotated three-dimensional model, a three-dimensional lowest envelope of the three-dimensional model at a first view angle (Castillo: FIG. 18D illustrates such an envelope bounding box, depicted as a quadrilateral, though other shapes and sizes are possible [0128]) and a two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional lowest envelope (Castillo: In some implementations, the bounding box is projected after a target location function is performed to identify the location of the subject in the display [0107]), the two-dimensional projection comprising at least one projection face;
Sirakov (NPL: A Fast Approach for Determining of Visibility of 3D Object's Surfaces) teaches:
rotating, based on the model information, the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle (Sirakov: Let us rotate the polygon in positive direction (anticlockwise) by angle Φ, PG. 4, Section 3: Rotation Problem of Plane Figures) in an x-axis direction (see Note 2A), and then rotating the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle in a y-axis direction (see Note 2A), to obtain a rotated three-dimensional model;
Note 2A: Sirakov teaches: “In order to find the first point of the description of a rotated polygon we apply the formulas (2) over the first point of the regularities: x' = x.cos(Φ); y =y.sin(Φ),” (Pg. 5, par. 4). X’ = x*cos(Φ) and Y’ = y*sin(Φ) are well known formulas in the art for rotating a coordinate by the angle Φ. It follows that Sirakov teaches “rotating, based on the model information, the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle in an x-axis direction and then rotating the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle in a y-axis direction”.
However, Castillo, Xi, and Sirakov still fail to teach:
rotating, based on the model information, the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the first angle and then rotating the three-dimensional model counterclockwise by the second angle in a y-axis direction, to obtain a rotated three-dimensional model corresponding to a bottom view angle;
determining, based on the rotated three-dimensional model, a two-dimensional lowest envelope of the three-dimensional model at a first view angle and a two-dimensional projection of the three-dimensional lowest envelope, the two-dimensional projection comprising at least one projection face;
determining a visible region corresponding to each projection face, and determining, based on the visible region corresponding to each projection face, a visible region included in each triangle mesh in the three-dimensional lowest envelope; and
rotating the visible region corresponding to each triangle mesh clockwise by the second angle in the y-axis direction, and then rotating the visible region corresponding to each triangle mesh clockwise by the first angle in the x-axis direction, to obtain the visible model region corresponding to the kth view angle of the three-dimensional model.
Claim 12 is substantially similar to claim 2 and shares many of the same limitations. Therefore, none of the other prior art searched or on the record teaches, suggests, or renders obvious the limitations of Claims 2 and 12.
Claims 3, 4, 13, and 14 are dependent on one of claim 2 or 12, and therefore are allowable for the same reasons listed above.
Regarding claim 6:
Hladky in view of Moon teaches:
The method according to claim 5 (as shown above), wherein the merging comprises:
transforming the visible regions that correspond to the at least two view angles and that are of the ith triangle mesh into two-dimensional space to obtain two-dimensional visible regions corresponding to the at least two view angles (Hladky: the 2D COS can be seen as an orthographic projection of triangles from a 3D space where the third dimension corresponds to depth [0056]);
merging the two-dimensional visible regions corresponding to the at least two view angles to obtain a merged region corresponding to the ith triangle mesh (Hladky: The creation of the PVS involves the combination of multiple 2D COS evaluations [0099]);
transforming the plurality of two-dimensional triangles into a three-dimensional space to obtain the merged visible region corresponding to the ith triangle mesh (Hladky: The structure shows […] extending the 2D COS to 3D, the triangle/tetrahedron is embedded on a flat hyperplane in the respective space [0056]).
Hladky in view of Moon fails to teach:
performing triangle dissection on the merged region corresponding to the ith triangle mesh to obtain a plurality of two-dimensional triangles; and
Wonka teaches:
performing triangle dissection on the environment corresponding to the ith triangle mesh to obtain a plurality of two-dimensional triangles (Wonka: For our system we chose to use a constrained Delaunay triangulation of free space. The actual view cells are found by erecting a prism above each triangle of the triangulation, Pg. 8, Section 3.1: Subdivision into View Cells; see Note 6A); and
However, Wonka does not appear to implicitly or explicitly teach triangle dissection on the merged region as claimed, because Wonka teaches a “constrained Delaunay triangulation of free space” (Pg. 8, Section 3.1: Subdivision into View Cells) but does so before merging the PVS: “Calculate view cell visibility (merge PVS or intersect umbra volumes of sample points)” (Pg. 7, Section 2.3: Algorithm Overview).
Claim 16 is substantially similar to claim 6 and shares many of the same limitations. Therefore, none of the other prior art searched or on the record teaches, suggests, or renders obvious the limitations of Claims 6 and 16.
Claims 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, and 19 are dependent on one of claim 6 or 16, and therefore are allowable for the same reasons listed above.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Hladky (NPL: The Camera Offset Space: Real-time Potentially Visible Set Computations for Streaming Rendering) corresponds to the primary reference Hladky (US 20200327713 A1).
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/VINCENT ALEXANDER PROVIDENCE/Examiner, Art Unit 2617 /KING Y POON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2617
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