This grant provides funding for the development of an intrinsic watermark technique for solids bounded by free-form surfaces. This technique will extract intrinsic properties of solids, which are not affected by coordinate transformations, random noise and malicious action of the user. This watermark can be destroyed only if the digital model describing the shape is changed so much that the newly represented object cannot be considered any more approximately identical to the original solid in the database. The developed computational methods will allow us to check if the two solids are equal within a certain accuracy. Furthermore, the method will provide a stronger test, which relies on intrinsic surface properties of the models.

Recently copyright issues for digital contents are becoming a serious problem. Especially when the copyrighted digital contents are exposed to the internet, they are an easy target for malicious parties to produce pirate digital contents for unauthorized sales. If successful, the results of this research will lead to a method which will help identify whether the suspicious solid model is copied from an original solid model. Hence, one would be in a position to settle legal disputes in some cases that appear to be beyond the scope of currently available methods. The proposed work will also contribute to computational tools for digital solid shape identification. For example, in an electronic commerce environment through the internet, a 3D digital catalog could allow customers to search for merchandise similar to a specific design.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI)
Application #
0010127
Program Officer
Delcie R. Durham
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2001-03-15
Budget End
2004-08-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2000
Total Cost
$451,311
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02139