Patch zippering for mesh compression

A method for mesh encoding, the method comprising:

• partitioning a mesh into patches;
• encoding patch information of the patches into a first portion of a bitstream;
• and
• encoding patch boundary information of the patches into a second portion of the bitstream, the patch boundary information including a boundary table that indicates, for each of the patches, (i) a first mapping between mesh vertex indices and boundary vertices of the respective patch;
• (ii) a second mapping between the mesh vertex indices and UV coordinates of the boundary vertices of the respective patch, and (iii) a third mapping between the mesh vertex indices and three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of the boundary vertices of the respective patch, the patch boundary information being indicative of at least a first edge of a first patch of the patches and a second edge of a second patch of the patches being a pair of edge mates.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform an encoding method comprising:

• partitioning a mesh into patches;
• encoding patch information of the patches into a first portion of a bitstream;
• and
• encoding patch boundary information of the patches into a second portion of the bitstream, the patch boundary information including a boundary table that indicates, for each of the patches, (i) a first mapping between mesh vertex indices and boundary vertices of the respective patch;
• (ii) a second mapping between the mesh vertex indices and UV coordinates of the boundary vertices of the respective patch, and (iii) a third mapping between the mesh vertex indices and three-dimensional (3D) coordinates of the boundary vertices of the respective patch, the patch boundary information being indicative of at least a first edge of a first patch of the patches and a second edge of a second patch of the patches being a pair of edge mates;
• and
• transmitting the encoded bitstream.