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
This action is in response to the amendment filed on 02/09/2026. Claims 1, 13, and 20 have been amended while claims 5-6 and 17-18 have been cancelled. Amendments have been fully taken into consideration and overcome the 101 rejections, but fail to overcome the 102 and the 103 rejections. Claims 1-4, 7-16, and 19-20 remain rejected in the application.
Response to Arguments
In response to applicants arguments regarding Martin disclosing a static tree, arguments fully considered but is not persuasive. Claim 1 does not require altering parent child relationships, it requires selecting a group of nodes from the complete tree to obtain the optimal tree which is taught by Martin (Martin: Col. 5, Lines 10-14 “a choice of the most Suitable combination of representations for a model made of one or more components is made adaptively, in a manner that is dependent on user preferences and transmission context. The transmission context is defined here as the plurality of parameters”). Claims 1-4, 7-16, and 19-20 remain rejected in the application.
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.
Claims 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Martin (U.S. Patent No. 6,684,255).
Regarding claim 1, Martin discloses a method for generating an optimal tree for rendering or streaming a 3D model (Martin: Abstract “Three dimensional models having one or more model components stored in model databases, accessed by servers, and being viewed interactively from client computers are processed for transmission over a network. A model hierarchy is built with one or more nodes, by clustering together one or more of the model components based on one or more clustering criteria.”)(teaches a model hierarchy which corresponds to optimal tree, further teaches transmission over a network corresponding to streaming the 3d model), comprising: obtaining a complete tree of a 3D model (Martin: Col. 6, Line 39 “generate a 3D model hierarchy”); wherein the complete tree includes a plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of nodes represents a plurality of triangles (Martin: Col. 6, Lines 47-51 “FIG. 4B is a prior art block diagram of the example model hierarchy 450 generated using the Spatial clustering Scheme illustrated in FIG. 4A. The leaves of the hierarchy 465 correspond to the individual components of the model, the internal nodes 460 correspond to clusters of components, and the root node 455 corresponds to the entire model”)(Martin: Col. 5, Lines 4-9 “Examples of representations include polygonal representations, 2D images of the model rendered from various viewpoints, level-of-detail (LOD) representations, progressive representations, panoramas, 2D images augmented with depth information, and implicit Surfaces”); determining a triangle budget based on a limitation of an internet connection speed or a computing power of a user device, wherein the triangle budget represents a hard limit on an amount of triangles to be loaded and displayed for displaying the 3D model (Martin: Col. 5, Lines 14-19 “The transmission context is defined here as the plurality of parameters that characterize the environment in which a client/server pair operates. Examples of Such parameters include client hardware characteristics, Server load, Server hardware characteristics, and network bandwidth”)(Martin: Col. 9, Lines 50-54 “The evaluation of transmission context 715 may provide, for example, information about the currently available network bandwidth between a client and a server, the load on a Server, and the capabilities of a client”)(Martin: Col. 9, Lines 62-65 “Since the selection of representations is constrained by a cost budget, it is desirable that the components that are most significant for display on the client be processed first”); obtaining a quality value of each of the plurality of nodes of the complete tree of the 3D model (interpreted as for a given node in the tree, determine a numeric quality value)(Martin: Col. 7, Lines 1-35 “how long it would take to deliver a given representation 485 to a client, at what frame rate it could be manipulated on the client, and how well it approximates the original model. Thus, each representation includes an interface that allows the client-server framework to estimate its overall cost of transmission. The cost can be defined in a number of ways, as a function p of various parameters that meaning fully characterize the transmission context and reflect user preferences….quality: represents a measure of how well the representation rendered on the client approximates a rendering of the corresponding components if they were available to that client in their original representations. It can be defined as a number in the interval 0, 1), where 0 signifies that no representation is available for a given component or cluster, and 1 is the quality associated with the original representation” )(teaches representation 485 is associated with each node of the model hierarchy and for each representation defines a quality parameter which is an explicit numeric quality); obtaining a visibility value of each of the plurality of nodes of the complete tree of the 3D model (interpreted as for a given node in the tree, determine a visibility value indicating how visible that part of the model is)(Martin: Col. 9, Line 65-66 “a two-pass Scheme is used to compute the Visibility”); determining a plurality of scores corresponding to the plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of scores is determined by dividing the quality value of the corresponding node by the visibility value of the corresponding node (Martin: Col. 8, Lines 44-46 “Defining a cost function as previously described, allows for comparisons between the various representations associated with each of the nodes in the model hierarchy”)(Martin. Col. 8, Lines 59-65 “To estimate Significance, we incorporate in our Selection algorithm two additional measures of Significance: the Visibility V of a component with respect to the viewpoint and View direction, and its contribution C to the client view. These parameters allow for a prioritization of components when given a limited cost budget”); comparing the scores of the nodes in the complete tree for determining a group of nodes that optimizes a visual quality while being restricted by the triangle budget to obtain an optimal tree of the 3D model (Martin: Col. 5, Lines 10-14 “a choice of the most Suitable combination of representations for a model made of one or more components is made adaptively, in a manner that is dependent on user preferences and transmission context. The transmission context is defined here as the plurality of parameters”)(teaches that the model is updated adaptively using the transmission context which are the parameters (quality and visibility were previously disclosed parameters)); and rendering the 3D model based on the optimal tree (Martin: Col. 5, Lines 20-26 “the choice of the most Suitable combination of representations is dynamically updated as the transmission context changes over time. The Selection of the optimal combination of representations can be done either on the Server Side or on the client side”) (teaches that the representation is updated as its transmitted (streamed or rendered) corresponding to rendering the updated version) and the triangle budget, wherein when the amount of triangles being rendered is still within the triangle budget, the quality value of the node having a lowest score is continuously improved (Martin: Col. 8, Lines 36-43 “If there is a Set of representations associated with the children of the current node for which the combined cost fits the remaining cost budget for the current transmission, the children of the node are processed. Otherwise a representation is Selected from among those associated with the current node and is transferred to the client (e.g., the highest quality representation that fits within the remaining cost budget is selected)”)(Martin: Col. 10, Lines 60-62 “The process is repeated for the next node at front of the queue until the queue is empty or the budget is reached”); and displaying the rendered 3D model through a user device (Martin: Col. 4, Lines 49-52 “The clients (104,106) could be well known mainframe computers, personal computers, mobile computers, or any device that includes a computing device and a display capable of displaying a model to a user”)(Martin: Col. 5, Lines 35-36 “AS Soon as a representation is Selected by the Server, it is sent to the client for display”).
Regarding claim 4, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
determining the visibility value based on a surface area of the node divided by a distance from a location of a viewer point to the node (Martin: Col. 8, Lines 61-62 “the Visibility V of a component with respect to the viewpoint and View direction”)(teaches the visibility component based on the viewpoint/view direction which corresponds to location of viewer point).
Regarding claim 7, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
in response to the optimal tree being determined, requesting optimal data with respect to the optimal tree from a server or a memory; receiving the optimal data from the server or the memory; and rendering the 3D model based on the optimal tree and the optimal data (Martin: Col. 5, Lines 28-33 “After a client requests a specific model, the server retrieves the characteristics of the model from the model database and it runs the selection algorithm (600, 700) described to determine the most suitable representation of the model to be transmitted to the client for display purposes”)(explicitly teaches requesting and retrieving data from a database (server or memory) and displaying it (rendering)).
Regarding claim 8, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
transforming a rendered tree to the optimal tree based on a location of a viewer point (Martin: Col. 3, Lines 36-45 “The models comprise one or more model components and are viewed from a viewpoint that may change in time. A model hierarchy is built, with one or more nodes, by clustering together one or more of the model components based on one or more clustering criteria. One or more representations are associated with each node in the hierarchy. A cost function is associated with the model hierarchy and used to determine a cost of each representation at each node. A visibility of each node in the hierarchy from the current viewpoint is evaluated and associated with the respective node.”)(teaches the model is viewed from a viewpoint that may change in time and that visibility is computed from the current viewpoint).
Claim 9 and 10’s limitations function nearly identical to claim 8’s, but in a startup from an initial tree and in a runtime from an optimal tree which are routine implementation details. Thus, claims 9 and 10 are rejected for the same reasons as claim 8 above.
Claims 13 and 20 are host and non-transitory storage circuit claims corresponding to claim 1 without any additional limitations. Thus, claims 13 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons as claim 1 above.
Claim 16 is a host claim corresponding to claim 4 without any additional limitations. Thus, claim 16 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 4 above.
Claim 19 is a host claim corresponding to claim 7 without any additional limitations. Thus, claim 19 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 7 above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 2, 3, 14, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin (U.S. Patent No. 6,684,255), in view of Li et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0302689).
Regarding claim 2, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising:
determining the visibility value based on a location of the viewer point (Martin: Col. 8, Lines 61-62 “the Visibility V of a component with respect to the viewpoint and View direction”)(teaches the visibility component based on the viewpoint/view direction which corresponds to location), but fails to explicitly disclose determining the quality value based on a triangle count or an amount of texels of the node.
However, Li discloses determining the quality value based on a triangle count or an amount of texels of the node [Li: 0003 “Three - dimensional objects generally are formed from a geometry , often a set of triangles ( i.e. , a triangle mesh ) , and textures , often a set of two - dimensional images”][Li: 0039 “For example , the resolution of the voxel grid may be determined by heuristics based on the massive mesh dataset's bounding box and data statistics , such as vertex count , triangle count , texel count , etc.”](teaches that 3D object quality is practically characterized by data statistics like triangle count and texel count).
Martin and Li are both considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of streaming 3D models. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Martin to incorporate Li’s teachings of using triangle or texel count. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of implementing a quality metric that directly relates geometric and texture complexity to bandwidth and performance constraints.
Regarding claim 3, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose further comprising: determining the quality value based on a triangle count or an amount of texels of the node relative to a triangle count or an amount of texels of an original mesh represented by the node.
However, Li discloses further comprising: determining the quality value based on a triangle count or an amount of texels of the node relative to a triangle count or an amount of texels of an original mesh represented by the node [Li: 0003 “Three - dimensional objects generally are formed from a geometry , often a set of triangles ( i.e. , a triangle mesh ) , and textures , often a set of two - dimensional images”][Li: 0039 “For example , the resolution of the voxel grid may be determined by heuristics based on the massive mesh dataset's bounding box and data statistics , such as vertex count , triangle count , texel count , etc.”] (teaches using triangle and texel count as quantitative statistics).
Martin and Li are both considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of streaming 3D models. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Martin to incorporate Li’s teachings of using triangle or texel count. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of implementing a quality metric that directly relates geometric and texture complexity to bandwidth and performance constraints.
Claim 14 is a host claim corresponding to claim 2 without any additional limitations. Thus, claim 14 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 2 above.
Claim 15 is a host claim corresponding to claim 3 without any additional limitations. Thus, claim 15 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 3 above.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin (U.S. Patent No. 6,684,255), in view of Story (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2022/0005257).
Regarding claim 11, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose further comprising: in response to the node of the 3D model being hit by a ray from a viewer point, increasing the visibility value of the node.
However, Story discloses further comprising: in response to the node of the 3D model being hit by a ray from a viewer point, increasing the visibility value of the node [Story: 0038 “a ray - traced sample determined for a location , such as the location 130 , and for a ray , such as the ray 142 , may include a visibility ( e.g. , visibility value ) representative of whether the ray interacted with the light source 120. For example , a visibility value for the ray a binary value in which a “ 1 ” indicates the ray hit the light source 120 and a “ O ” indicates the ray did not hit the light source”](teaches the ray trace increases the visibility value when it hits).
Martin and Story are both considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer graphics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Martin to incorporate Story’s teachings of utilizing ray tracing. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of improving the visibility parameter.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Martin (U.S. Patent No. 6,684,255), in view of Nankervis (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0018876).
Regarding claim 12, Martin discloses the method according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly disclose further comprising: in response to the node of the 3D model being hidden, decreasing the visibility value of the node to zero.
However, Nankervis discloses further comprising: in response to the node of the 3D model being hidden, decreasing the visibility value of the node to zero [Nankervis: 0022 “For each point in the set of points, a visibility value is then determined by comparing the coordinates of each of the points to the generated depth map. In some embodiments, a visibility of 1 may be assigned to the points that are visible to the lighting source (by being in front of the 3D geometry) and a visibility of 0 may be assigned to the points that are invisible to the lighting source by being behind the 3D geometry.”][Nankervis: 0032 “If a point is above the 3D geometry, the point is visible and is assigned a value of 1; and if the point is below the 3D geometry, the point is not visible and is assigned a value of 0.”](teaches visibility value per point that is set to 0 (decreasing from 1) whenever a point is behind the geometry (not visible)).
Martin and Nankervis are both considered analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer graphics. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Martin to incorporate Nankervis’s teachings of changing the visibility value. The motivation for such a combination would provide the benefit of controlling visibility handling.
Conclusion
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. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AHMED TAHA whose telephone number is (571)272-6805. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 am - 5 pm, Mon - Fri. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, XIAO WU can be reached at (571)272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786- 9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/AHMED TAHA/Examiner, Art Unit 2613
/XIAO M WU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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