A method for representation and lossy compression of textured surfaces is presented. The input surfaces are represented by surfels (surface elements), i.e., by a set of colored, oriented, and sized disks. The position and texture of each surfel are mapped onto a sphere. The mapping is optimized for preservation of geodesic distances. The components of the resulting spherical vector-valued function are decorrelated by the Karhunen-Lo`eve transform and represented by spherical wavelets. Successful representation and reconstruction is demonstrated. Methods for geodesic distance computation on surfaces represented by surfels are presented.
Tal Darom, Mauro R. Ruggeri, Dietmar Saupe, Nahum