Normal vector compression of 3D mesh model based on clustering and relative indexing

As the transmission of 3D shape models through Internet becomes more important, the compression issue of shape models gets more critical. While the compressions of topology and geometry have been explored significantly, the same issue for normal vectors has not yet been studied as much as it deserves.

Presented in this paper is an approach to compress the normal vectors of a 3D mesh model using the concept of clustering and relative indexing. The model is assumed to be manifold triangular mesh model with normal vectors associated with vertices. The proposed scheme clusters the normal vectors of given model and the representative normal vector of each cluster is referred to via a mixed use of relative as well as absolute indexing concepts. It turns out that the proposed approach achieves a significant compression ratio (less than 10% of the original VRML model files) without a serious sacrifice of the visual quality.