Just Noticeable Distortion Profile for Flat-Shaded 3D Mesh Surfaces

Georges Nader (1) , Kai Wang (2) , Franck Hétroy-Wheeler (3) , Florent Dupont (1)

1 M2DisCo - Geometry Processing and Constrained Optimization
2 GIPSA-AGPIG - GIPSA - Architecture, Géométrie, Perception, Images, Gestes
3 MORPHEO - Capture and Analysis of Shapes in Motion

It is common that a 3D mesh undergoes some lossy operations (e.g., compression, watermarking and transmission through noisy channels), which can introduce geometric distortions as a change in vertex position. In most cases the end users of 3D meshes are human beings; therefore, it is important to evaluate the visibility of introduced vertex displacement. In this paper we present a model for computing a Just Noticeable Distortion (JND) profile for flat-shaded 3D meshes. The proposed model is based on an experimental study of the properties of the human visual system while observing a flat-shaded 3D mesh surface, in particular the contrast sensitivity function and contrast masking. We first define appropriate local perceptual properties on 3D meshes. We then detail the results of a series of psychophysical experiments where we have measured the threshold needed for a human observer to detect the change in vertex position. These results allow us to compute the JND profile for flat-shaded 3D meshes. The proposed JND model has been evaluated via a subjective experiment, and applied to guide 3D mesh simplification as well as to determine the optimal vertex coordinates quantization level for a 3D model.

Mots clés: 3D mesh; human visual system; psychophysical experiments; contrast masking; contrast sensitivity function; Just noticeable distortion

Domaines: Géométrie algorithmique [cs.CG]; Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]

Georges Nader, Kai Wang, Franck Hétroy-Wheeler, Florent Dupont. Just Noticeable Distortion Profile for Flat-Shaded 3D Mesh Surfaces. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2016, 22 (11), pp.2423-2436. ⟨10.1109/TVCG.2015.2507578⟩. ⟨hal-01242271⟩