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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4, 6, 8, 11-12, 14, 16, 19-20 are 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.
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, 2, 5, 7, and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Zakharchenko (Pub No. US 20250148715 A1, herein referred to as “Zakharchenko ‘715 ‘”).
As per claim 1, Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
1. A method of mesh decoding, the method comprising:
receiving a bitstream that includes base mesh information of a base mesh (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0005] “In another example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium stores a coded mesh bitstream generated according to the following operations. The operations include normalizing coordinates of each vertex of a plurality of vertices in a mesh frame of a dynamic mesh; integerizing the coordinates of each vertex of the plurality of vertices;” In this instance, the mesh frame of a dynamic mesh corresponds to the claimed “base mesh”), the base mesh including a subset of a plurality of vertices of a mesh in a current mesh frame (Zakharchenko ‘715 in figure 5 show V-mesh frame sequence including a plurality of mesh frames, e.g. frame_o to frame_n. The claimed “current mesh frame” corresponds to one of these mesh frames in figure 5, e.g. frame_0. The claimed “a subset of a plurality of vertices of a mesh in a current mesh frame” corresponds to one or more vertices in the current mesh frame, e.g. frame_0 in figure 5 of Zakharchenko ‘715);
determining a position of a current vertex of the base mesh based on a quantized position of the current vertex of the base mesh (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] “To encode the geometry vertices as described herein, the global coordinates (X, Y, Z) of each vertex in the mesh frame 802 are normalized to generate normalized coordinates (X.sub.Q, Y.sub.Q, Z.sub.Q). The normalization includes shifting the coordinate values to a positive range and then integerizing them to a geometry bit depth specified for the geometry information of the dynamic mesh”.
In this instance, integerizing the vertex coordinates corresponds to the claimed “quantized position” a current vertex, where the current vertex is one of the vertices in a plurality of vertices of the base mesh (mesh frame 802)) that is generated according to a bitdepth scaling function, the bitdepth scaling function being configured to convert a first subset of positions of the vertices of the base mesh into a first integer (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] “… For example, if the X coordinates of the vertices in the mesh frame have a range between −5.37 to 10, the X coordinates are shifted to the range of 0 to 15.37 by adding 5.37 to each X coordinate value. The X coordinates can each be integerized into the geometry bit depth by scaling the coordinates to a range corresponding to the geometry bit depth to generate X.sub.Q. For example, if the geometry bit depth is 15 bits, the coordinate range is 0 to 32767. Similar operations can be performed on the Y and Z coordinates to generate Y.sub.Q and Z.sub.Q, respectively.”
In this instance, the “X coordinates of the vertices in the mesh frame have a range between −5.37 to 10” corresponds to the claimed “first subset of positions of the vertices”. According to Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068], this first subset of positions of the vertices are converted into a first integer (e.g. an integer in the range of 0 to 32767 when the bit depth is 15 bits)) and a second subset of the positions of the vertices of the base mesh into a second integer (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] “To encode the geometry vertices as described herein, the global coordinates (X, Y, Z) of each vertex in the mesh frame 802 are normalized to generate normalized coordinates (X.sub.Q, Y.sub.Q, Z.sub.Q) … For example, if the X coordinates of the vertices in the mesh frame have a range between −5.37 to 10, the X coordinates are shifted to the range of 0 to 15.37 by adding 5.37 to each X coordinate value. The X coordinates can each be integerized into the geometry bit depth by scaling the coordinates to a range corresponding to the geometry bit depth to generate X.sub.Q. For example, if the geometry bit depth is 15 bits, the coordinate range is 0 to 32767. Similar operations can be performed on the Y and Z coordinates to generate Y.sub.Q and Z.sub.Q, respectively.”
In this instance, the integer Y or Z coordinates of the vertices in the mesh frame corresponds to the claimed “second subset of positions of the vertices”. This is because in Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] states that “Similar operations can be performed on the Y and Z coordinates”. In other words, the similar operations are performed on the Y and Z coordinates that are performed on the X coordinates. This results in each a second subset of the positions of the vertices of the base mesh being converted into an integer between 0 and 32767 when the bit depth is 15), a total number of the first subset of the positions being equal to a total number of the second subset of the positions (The total number of the first and second subsets of positions are equal because the vertices in [0068] of Zakharchenko ‘715 each have X, Y, and Z coordinates. Thus, each X coordinate has a corresponding Y or Z coordinate. Thus, the total number of the first subset of positions (number of vertices with X coordinates) is equal to the total number of the second subset of positions (number of vertices with Y or Z coordinates)); and
reconstructing the current vertex based on the determined position of the current vertex of the base mesh (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0094] “At block 1308, the process 1300 involves reconstructing global coordinates of the vertices in the mesh frame from the coordinates of vertices in the local coordinate system of the 3D sub-block. As described above, the reconstruction can be performed based on the coordinates of the origin of the 3D block, such as according to Eqn. (14). At block 1310, the process 1300 involves reconstructing geometry coordinates of the vertices by applying inverse integerization based on integerization parameter for geometry information of the dynamic mesh as formulated in Eqn. (15).”).
As per claim 2, Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
2. The method of claim 1, wherein: the bitdepth scaling function is based on a position bitdepth m and an encoding bitdepth n, the position bitdepth m indicates that the position of the current vertex is in a range between 0 and 2m-1, and the encoding bitdepth n indicates that the position of the current vertex is quantized into a range between 0 and 2n-1 (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] “…The X coordinates can each be integerized into the geometry bit depth by scaling the coordinates to a range corresponding to the geometry bit depth to generate X.sub.Q. For example, if the geometry bit depth is 15 bits, the coordinate range is 0 to 32767. Similar operations can be performed on the Y and Z coordinates to generate Y.sub.Q and Z.sub.Q, respectively.”
In Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068], m and n are equal to 15 in their scaling function. This results in the range for the position and encoding bitdepth to be 215-1 = 32767. Thus, the bitdepth range for the vertex coordinates in Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] corresponds to both position bitdepth m and an encoding bitdepth n ranges because the values used in Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] represent both position coordinates and encoding values).
As per claim 5, Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the bitdepth scaling function is configured to round the
position of the current vertex to an integer. (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0070] “Based on the geometry integerization parameter Q.sub.PG and the bounding box coordinates, the normalized coordinates for each vertex can be represented as a triplets of integer values with a fixed precision as follows: … where “<int> x” represents converting x into an integer number, for example, by rounding x to the nearest integer”. As mentioned previously, Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches of using the bitdepth scaling function in [0068]).
As per claim 7, Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
7. The method of claim 2, wherein the position bitdepth is equal to or less than the encoding bitdepth. (Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068] “…The X coordinates can each be integerized into the geometry bit depth by scaling the coordinates to a range corresponding to the geometry bit depth to generate X.sub.Q. For example, if the geometry bit depth is 15 bits, the coordinate range is 0 to 32767. Similar operations can be performed on the Y and Z coordinates to generate Y.sub.Q and Z.sub.Q, respectively.” In Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0068], both the position bitdepth and encoding bitdepth are equal to 15 in their scaling function).
As per claim 17, the reasons and rationale for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
processing a bitstream of the mesh data according to a format rule (Zakharchenko ‘715 at the end of the abstract “… The encoder compresses the geometry component image to generate a geometry component bitstream and further generates the coded mesh bitstream for the dynamic mesh by including the geometry component bitstream”. Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0049] “… A mesh frame is a data format that describes 3D content (e.g., 3D objects) in a digital representation as a collection of geometry, connectivity, attribute, and attribute mapping information. Each mesh frame is characterized by a presentation time and duration. A mesh frame sequence (e.g., sequence of mesh frames) forms a dynamic mesh video.” Zakharchenko ‘715 in [0055] “… These decoding modules convert the decoded video data into the respective formats of the data. For example, for geometry data, the decoded images in the video can be reformatted back into canonical XYZ 3D coordinates to generate the geometry data.” In this instance, the format rule is one or more rules used to organize, store, encode, or decode the mesh related data).
As per claim 18, this claim is similar in scope to limitations recited in claim 2, and thus is rejected under the same rationale.
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 of this title, 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 9-10, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zakharchenko ‘715 in view of Zakharchenko et al. (Pub No. US 2024/0242391 A1, herein referred to as “Zakharchenko ‘391”).
As per claim 9, the reasons and rationale for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Zakharchenko ‘715 alone does the teach, however, Zakharchenko ‘391 in combination with Zakharchenko ‘715 teaches the claimed:
determining a position prediction of the quantized position of the current vertex; and coding a position prediction residue for the position prediction of the current vertex in a bitstream. (Zakharchenko ‘391 in [0056] “In the various approaches to coding 3D content illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1B, traversal of a triangle mesh in a deterministic, spiral-like manner ensures that each face (besides the initial face) is next to an already encoded face. This allows efficient compression of vertex coordinates and other attributes associated with each face. Attributes, such as coordinates and normals of a vertex, can be predicted from adjacent faces using various predictive algorithms, such as parallelogram prediction. This allows for efficient compression using differences between predicted and original values. By encoding each vertex of a face using the “C”, “L”, “E”, “R”, and “S” configuration symbols, information to reconstruct a triangle mesh can be minimized by encoding the mesh connectivity of the triangle mesh as the sequence by which the faces of the triangle mesh are encoded”.
In this passage, the predicted position attributes of a vertex predicted from adjacent faces corresponds to the claimed “a position prediction” of the current vertex.
Also in this passage, encoding the “differences between predicted and original values” corresponds to the claimed “coding a position prediction residue”. The claimed feature is taught when the position prediction as taught by Zakharchenko ‘391 is applied to the encoding/decoding used in Zakharchenko ‘715).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the position prediction as taught by Zakharchenko ‘391 with the system of Zakharchenko ‘715 in order to help achieve efficient compression of the mesh data (Zakharchenko ‘391 in [0056]).
As per claims 10, 13, and 15, these claims are similar in scope to limitations recited in claims 2, 5, and 7 respectively, and thus are rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL F HAJNIK whose telephone number is (571) 272-7642. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8am-5pm.
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.
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.
/DANIEL F HAJNIK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2616