3D animation coding: its history and framework

In this paper, a framework for 3D animation coding is proposed. The current MPEG-4 standards provide means to compress synthetic objects efficiently. The SNHC tools (e.g., face and body animation (FBA), still texture coding, and 3D mesh coding tools), combined with BIFS, can represent interactive 3D scenes efficiently. Although MPEG-4 SNHC and BIFS are designed to cope with VRML 2.0 and to yield a reasonably high compression, 3D animation is not supported efficiently. A framework to support 3D animation coding within the MPEG-4 structure is proposed.