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 .
Priority
Application claims priority to foreign application with application number CN202311869530.5 dated 12/29/2023. Copies of certified papers required by 37 CFR 1.55 have been received. Priority is acknowledged under 35 USC 119(e) and 37 CFR 1.78.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS dated 01/28/2025 has been considered and added to the application file.
Claim Interpretation
The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification.
The following terms in the claims have been given the following interpretations in light of the specification:
“Terminal device”: paragraph [0035] of the specification states: “Terminal device is a device with wireless transceiving functions.”
This definition is used for purposes of searching for prior art, but cannot be incorporated into the claims. Should applicant wish different definitions, applicant should point to the portions of the specification that clearly show a different definition.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 8-10, and 15-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoshino (US 20250157079 A1) in view of Qi (US 20230367013 A1; hereinafter "Qi") and Verret et al. (US 20210271854 A1; hereinafter "Verret") .
Regarding claim 1, Hoshino teaches: A method for scenario processing, comprising:
acquiring information of a first point cloud corresponding to a target scenario; acquiring information of a second point cloud corresponding to the target scenario collected by a target device ([0065] “The point cloud data acquiring unit 41 acquires point cloud data representing a distance distribution from the distance-measuring device 11.”;
[0069] “The controller 43 can successively acquire two sets of point cloud data and an image. The controller 43 can regard first set of point cloud data and an image as first point cloud data and a first image, and a second set of point cloud data and an image as second point cloud data and a second image.”;
Also see [0076] to [0079]);
determining a target point cloud, corresponding to the second point cloud, in the first point cloud based on the information of the first point cloud and the information of the second point cloud ([0092] “The controller 43 extracts the points of the first point cloud data and the points of the second point cloud data that are located at positions (u, v) corresponding to each other based on the information representing the correspondence relationship calculated in Step S105. For example, if the controller 43 calculated a transformation matrix that homographically transforms the second image into the first image in Step S105, the controller 43 applies this transformation matrix to each point of the two-dimensional second point cloud data. The controller 43 extracts the points of the first point cloud data whose positions (u, v) match the points of the transformed second point cloud data.”; the points matched between the first point cloud and the transformed second point cloud correspond to the claimed “target point cloud”).
Hoshino does not explicitly teach that the first point cloud information is collected by a terminal device with wireless transceiving functionality (see “Claim Interpretation” section).
Qi teaches: acquiring information of a first point cloud corresponding to a target scenario collected by a terminal device and acquiring information of a second point cloud corresponding to the target scenario collected by a target device ([0030] “LIDAR sensors of the ego vehicle 100 and the remote vehicle 202 generate an ego vehicle point cloud 206 and a remote vehicle point cloud 208.”;
[0047] “A LIDAR sensor of the remote vehicle 202 generates the remote vehicle point cloud 208. The ego vehicle 100 receives the remote vehicle point cloud 208 from the remote vehicle 202 via the wireless communication 204.”);
Hoshino and Qi are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of point cloud registration. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Hoshino with the teachings of Qi to acquire the first and second point clouds from different sources which are connected wirelessly. The motivation would have been to improve the invention’s versatility, for instance applying it to a network of autonomous vehicles, as taught by Qi.
The combination of Hoshino in view of Qi does not explicitly teach: determining a scale for constructing the target scenario based on the target point cloud and the second point cloud.
Verret teaches: determining a scale for constructing the target scenario based on the target point cloud and the second point cloud (Equation 2, transformation matrix includes a scale coefficient: [0019] “The scalar s represents an isometric scale correction factor…”).
Verret is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of point cloud registration. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi with the teachings of Verret to determine a fixed scale for the point clouds and transform one of the point clouds to match the scale of the other. The motivation would have been to account for differences between the calibration of different sensors, for instance the multiple autonomous vehicles of Qi.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret teaches: The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining a target point cloud, corresponding to the second point cloud, in the first point cloud based on the information of the first point cloud and the information of the second point cloud, comprises:
determining a first center coordinate of the first point cloud and a second center coordinate of the second point cloud (Hoshino [0089] “Next, the controller 43 calculates point clouds in a three-dimensional space from the expanded and distortion-corrected first point cloud data and second point cloud data, respectively (Step S108) … Here, the three-dimensional coordinates (x, y, z) can be, for example, coordinates of a coordinate system in which the position of the distance-measuring device 11 is the origin…”;
The origin of each point cloud can be considered to correspond to the claimed “center coordinate”);
determining a transition matrix between a coordinate system of the target scenario collected by the terminal device and a coordinate system of the target scenario collected by the target device based on a relationship between points in the first point cloud and the first center coordinate, a relationship between points in the second point cloud and the second center coordinate, the first center coordinate and the second center coordinate (Hoshino [0083] “The controller 43 calculates the transformation matrix of the homographic transformation from the feature points of the first image and the feature points of the second image. In this case, the transformation matrix of the homographic transformation is information representing the correspondence relationship between the first image and the second image.”; in a transformation of coordinate systems, the origin may be considered to correspond to the claimed “center coordinate”); and
determining the target point cloud, corresponding to the second point cloud, in the first point cloud based on the transition matrix, the information of the first point cloud and the information of the second point cloud (Hoshino [0092] “For example, if the controller 43 calculated a transformation matrix that homographically transforms the second image into the first image in Step S105, the controller 43 applies this transformation matrix to each point of the two-dimensional second point cloud data. The controller 43 extracts the points of the first point cloud data whose positions (u, v) match the points of the transformed second point cloud data.”; the matching points correspond to the claimed “target point cloud”).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret teaches: The method according to claim 2, wherein the determining the target point cloud, corresponding to the second point cloud, in the first point cloud based on the transition matrix, the information of the first point cloud and the information of the second point cloud, comprises:
obtaining a third point cloud of the second point cloud in the target scenario collected by the terminal device based on the transition matrix (Hoshino [0092] “For example, if the controller 43 calculated a transformation matrix that homographically transforms the second image into the first image in Step S105, the controller 43 applies this transformation matrix to each point of the two-dimensional second point cloud data.”; the transformed second point cloud corresponds to the claimed “third point cloud”); and
determining the target point cloud based on the first point cloud and the third point cloud (Hoshino [0092] “The controller 43 extracts the points of the first point cloud data whose positions (u, v) match the points of the transformed second point cloud data. When an extracted point of the first point cloud data and an extracted point of the second point cloud data have distances d that are approximately equal to each other, taking into account errors and the range of movable distances, the two points can be judged to correspond to each other.”; the points matched between the first point cloud and the transformed second point cloud correspond to the claimed “target point cloud”).
Regarding claims 8-10, they are rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claims 1-3 respectively because their limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1-3 respectively, with the additional limitation of: A terminal device (Qi [0030] “The ego vehicle 100 and the remote vehicle 202 are in wireless communication 204.”), comprising at least one processor (Qi [0035] “The cooperative perception system 170 is shown as including a processor 110 from the ego vehicle 100 of FIG. 1.”) and at least one memory, wherein the at least one memory stores computer-executable instructions; and the at least one processor executes the computer-executable instructions stored in the at least one memory and is caused to execute a method for scenario processing (Qi [0035] “In one embodiment, the cooperative perception system 170 includes a memory 410 that stores a cooperative perception module 420… The cooperative perception module 420 is, for example, computer-readable instructions that when executed by the processor 110 cause the processor 110 to perform the various functions disclosed herein.”).
The motivation for combining the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret with the additional teachings of Qi detailing the terminal device would have been similar to the motivation previously described for claim 1.
Regarding claims 15-17, they are rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claims 1-3 respectively because their limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 1-3 respectively, with the additional limitation of: A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, storing computer-executable instructions, wherein a processor upon executing the computer-executable instructions, implements a method for scenario processing (Hoshino [0075] “The information processing device 13 may be configured to implement the processing performed by the controller 43 described below by reading a program recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable medium.”).
Claim(s) 4, 11, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoshino (US 20250157079 A1) in view of Qi (US 20230367013 A1) and Verret (US 20210271854 A1) as applied to claims 3, 10, and 17 above, and further in view of Vlaminick et al. ("Multi-resolution ICP for the efficient registration of point clouds based on octrees." 2017 Fifteenth IAPR International Conference on Machine Vision Applications (MVA) (08-12 May 2017). https://doi.org/10.23919/MVA.2017.7986869; hereinafter "Vlaminick").
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret teaches: The method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the target point cloud based on the first point cloud and the third point cloud, comprises:
determining a point cloud in the first point cloud that is closest to the third point cloud as the target point cloud based on the first point cloud (Hoshino [0092] “The controller 43 extracts the points of the first point cloud data whose positions (u, v) match the points of the transformed second point cloud data. When an extracted point of the first point cloud data and an extracted point of the second point cloud data have distances d that are approximately equal to each other, taking into account errors and the range of movable distances, the two points can be judged to correspond to each other.”).
The combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret does not explicitly teach: constructing an octree based on the third point cloud; and
determining a point cloud in the first point cloud that is closest to the third point cloud as the target point cloud based on the first point cloud and the octree.
Vlaminick teaches: constructing an octree based on the third point cloud (section 3.2 “Octree-based multiresolution ICP”: “Motivated by this idea, we convert both the source and the target point cloud (also denoted as model point cloud) to an octree data structure”); and
determining a point cloud in the first point cloud that is closest to the third point cloud as the target point cloud based on the first point cloud and the octree (section 3.2 “Octree-based multiresolution ICP” teaches a “hierarchical octree-based ICP algorithm”, where the ICP algorithm is used to perform point cloud alignment/registration as claimed).
Vlaminick is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of point cloud registration. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret with the teachings of Vlaminick to represent point clouds using an octree data structure. The motivation would have been to improve speed and efficiency of the point cloud registration algorithm; Vlaminick describes these improvements on pg. 335, section 3.2 “Octree-based multiresolution ICP”.
Regarding claims 11 and 18, they are rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claim 4 because their limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 4.
Claim(s) 5, 7, 12, 14, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoshino (US 20250157079 A1) in view of Qi (US 20230367013 A1) and Verret (US 20210271854 A1) as applied to claims 1, 8, and 15 above, and further in view of Wen et al. (CN 115222616 A; hereinafter "Wen").
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret teaches: The method according to claim 1, but does not explicitly teach: wherein the determining a scale for constructing the target scenario based on the target point cloud and the second point cloud, comprises:
determining at least one first line segment in the target point cloud;
determining at least one second line segment, corresponding to the first line segment, in the second point cloud; and
determining the scale for constructing the target scenario based on lengths of at least one pair of the first line segment and the second line segment.
Wen teaches: wherein the determining a scale for constructing the target scenario based on the target point cloud and the second point cloud, comprises:
determining at least one first line segment in the target point cloud;
determining at least one second line segment, corresponding to the first line segment, in the second point cloud; and
determining the scale for constructing the target scenario based on lengths of at least one pair of the first line segment and the second line segment ([n0087] “Therefore, the scaling factor corresponding to the first heterogeneous point cloud data can be calculated based on the position information of the points in the point cloud data to be repaired and the position information of the points in the first heterogeneous point cloud data.”
[n0088] “Specifically, corresponding feature points, such as corner points, can be selected to calculate the scaling factor between the two.”
[n0092] “The physical meaning of the above method is to obtain a set of matching line segments and calculate the scaling factor of this set of point cloud data based on the ratio of the lengths of the two line segments.”;
Full explanation from [n0085] to [n0092]).
Wen is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of point cloud registration. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret with the teachings of Wen to determine the difference in scale between two point clouds being aligned by comparing corresponding line segments within each point cloud. The motivation would have been simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results (see MPEP 2143(I)(B)); both Verret and Wen teach determining the relative scale of two point clouds, differing only in methodology.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret and further in view of Wen teaches: The method according to claim 5, wherein the determining the scale for constructing the target scenario based on lengths of at least one pair of the first line segment and the second line segment, comprises:
determining a scale error between the target scenario collected by the terminal device and the target scenario collected by the target device based on a difference in the lengths of at least one pair of the first line segment and the second line segment; and determining the scale at which the terminal device constructs the target scenario based on the scale error (Verret [0013] “The error parameters can include seven parameters. Three of the parameters can include translation in x, y, and z, respectively. Three of the parameters can be for rotation in x, y, and z (roll, pitch, and yaw), respectively. One of the parameters can be for a scale factor between the first 3D point set 104 and the second 3D point set 106.”;
[0172] “In Example 3, Example 2 can further include, wherein the conditioned error includes errors in translation in x, errors in translation in y, errors in translation in z, errors in roll, errors in yaw, errors in pitch, and errors in scale between the first and second images.”).
The motivation to combine the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret with the additional teachings of Verret would have been similar to the motivation described for claim 1.
Regarding claims 12 and 19, they are rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claim 5 because their limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 5.
Regarding claim 14, it is rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claim 7 because its limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 7.
Claim(s) 6, 13, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hoshino (US 20250157079 A1) in view of Qi (US 20230367013 A1) and Verret (US 20210271854 A1) and further in view of Wen (CN 115222616 A) as applied to claims 5, 12, and 19 above, and further in view of Fang (US 20150078642 A1).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret and further in view of Wen teaches: The method according to claim 5, but does not explicitly teach: further comprising:
performing tetrahedralization on the target point cloud to obtain at least one first tetrahedron; and
performing tetrahedralization on a point cloud, corresponding to the target point cloud, in the second point cloud to obtain at least one second tetrahedron,
wherein the first line segment is an edge of the first tetrahedron and the second line segment is an edge of the second tetrahedron.
Fang teaches performing tetrahedralization on a point cloud to obtain a tetrahedral mesh, which consists of points and edges (line segments) connecting the points ([0033] “Further, the 3D point cloud of the feature points corresponding to the surface (skin layer) of the sample is tessellated at step 322C to generate a 3D mesh of the sample (such as a human head surface an/or volume). In one embodiment the tessellation includes triangulation or tetrahedralization operations, resulting in building a triangular surface or a tetrahedral mesh with the point cloud.”).
Fang is analogous to the claimed invention because it is in the same field of point cloud processing and pertains to the same problem of obtaining line segments from a point cloud. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the invention of Hoshino in view of Qi and Verret and further in view of Wen with the teachings of Fang to perform tetrahedralization on the two point clouds being aligned in a registration process in order to obtain corresponding line segments. The motivation would have been simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results (MPEP 2143(I)(B)) – replacing the method of obtaining line segments described in Wen with the method described in Fang.
Regarding claims 13 and 20, they are rejected using the same references, rationale, and motivation to combine as claim 6 because their limitations substantially correspond to the limitations of claim 6.
References Cited
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Chakravarty et al. (US 20220076441 A1) teaches a method of point cloud registration in which a transformation matrix is determined to transform one point cloud into the coordinate system of the other, including an adjustment of scale.
Conclusion
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/BENJAMIN TOM STATZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2611
/TAMMY GODDARD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2611
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