Image-based network rendering system for large sized meshes

Recent advancement in sensing and software technologies enables us to obtain large scale, yet fine 3D mesh models of cultural assets. However, such large-scale models cannot be displayed interactively on consumer computers because of the performance limitation of the hardware. We propose an interactive rendering system for large scale 3D mesh models, stored on a remote machine through relatively small capacity of networks. Our system uses both model and image based rendering methods for efficient load balance between a server and clients. On the server, the 3D models are rendered by the model-based method using a hierarchical data structure with multi-resolution. On the client, it reconstructs an arbitrary view by using a novel image-based method, referred to as the Grid-Lumigraph, with blending image colors from sampling images received from the server. The resulting rendering system can efficiently render any image in real-time.