Protocol for streaming compressed 3-D animations over lossy channels

We propose a protocol for efficient streaming of 3-D animations over lossy channels. In order to improve the expected quality on the client's side, we first transmit a crude model of the 3-D mesh, of its texture, and of its immediate evolution. We endow this data with significant error-protection against transmission error. Then we transmit a series of upgrades that refine the accuracy of the model and/or of the animation. These are encoded with lower levels of error protection that is proportional to their impact on the quality of the upgraded animation. We propose the following types of upgrade chunks: selection of a subset of vertices, adjustments of the accuracy of the positions of the selected vertices, connectivity refinements, motion adjustments of the selected subset of vertices, adjustments of the accuracy of the texture coordinates of the selected vertices, and upgrade of the quality of the texture. Finally, given the allocated bit-budget, we determine the optimal number of both source and channel coding bits assigned for each chunk to maximize the animation quality on the client's side. The optimization takes into account both the bandwidth and the error characteristics of the channel.