Sony patents method to compress 3D video by tracking shape and color together
Sony has been granted a patent for a way to compress 3D video data, known as point cloud coding. The method finds how objects move between frames by looking at both their physical shape and their color, rather than just one or the other. It uses this combined information to predict what the next frame looks like, which reduces the amount of data needed to store or send the video.
In the filing’s own words
An attribute inter-prediction framework using motion search criterion, proper reference, attribute projection and in-loop filter is described herein. An alternative motion estimation strategy incorporates color distance into the motion search criterion where geometry and attribute motion are jointly searched which leads to a single motion vector associated with each predicted block. The composed distance is the weighted sum of color and geometry distance. With the composed distance, two new types of search criterion are used to estimate the motion vectors: using the nearest neighbor composed distance, using the minimum composed distance based on the search of composed distances associated with each reference point within the search window. A dedicated attribute coding scheme using a two-pass motion search scheme, where the first pass is based on geometry only, and the second pass targets on eliminating temporal attribute redundancy. An in-loop filter can be applied to the projected attributes.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A method programmed as instructions in a non-transitory memory, the instructions processed by a processor of a device, the method comprising: performing joint motion estimation based on a previous frame and a current frame of content to generate geometry motion vectors, wherein the joint motion estimation is based on geometry information and attribute information, wherein the geometry information comprises a geometry distance, the attribute information comprises a color distance, and the geometry distance and color distance are combined to generate a composed distance which is used for the joint motion estimation; and generating a new frame based on the geometry motion vectors using inter-frame attribute coding.
Facts
- Company
- Sony (SONY GROUP CORPORATION)
- Official title
- Motion-compensated attribute coding using geometry and attribute information in geometry-based dynamic point cloud coding
- Patent number
- US12739395B2
- Application number
- 18758157
- Filed
- Jun 28, 2024
- Granted
- Sep 15, 2026
- Inventors
- 4
- Claims
- 18
Classified under
H04N 19/139 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/172 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/513 Electricity & electronicsH04N 19/82 Electricity & electronicsMore from Sony in Cameras & imaging
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.