Compression of 3-D Point Visual Data Using Vector Quantization and Rate-Distortion Optimization

In this paper, we propose adaptive and flexible quantization and compression algorithms for 3-D point data using vector quantization (VQ) and rate-distortion (R-D) optimization. The point data are composed of the position and the radius of sphere based on QSplat representation. The positions of child spheres are first transformed to the local coordinate system, which is determined by the parent-children relationship. The local coordinate transform makes the positions more compactly distributed in 3-D space, facilitating an effective application of VQ. We also develop a constrained encoding method for the radius data, which can provide a hole-free surface rendering at the decoder side. Furthermore, R-D optimized compression algorithm is proposed in order to allocate an optimal bitrate to each sphere. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively compress the original 3-D point geometry at various bitrates.