Secure protection of 3D content through reversible geometric deformation

The widespread use of 3D objects in many fields poses new challenges for their secure transmission, storage and visualization. While selective encryption methods allow format compliance and enable adjustable security by selectively encrypting 3D geometry, they produce visible noise and disrupt geometric coherence which reduces compression efficiency. In this paper, we propose a reversible deformation method for 3D object protection that breaks with state-of-the-art 3D security approaches by offering more natural and visually coherent protection. The deformation is applied directly to the geometry, controlled by a secret key, and can be adjusted to achieve the desired level of visual security. Experimental results presented on a large database demonstrate that our method offers protection comparable to selective encryption, while providing significantly greater resilience to reconstruction attacks such as Laplacian smoothing, particularly at low security levels where selective encryption is more vulnerable. This work introduces a new direction for format-compliant 3D object protection, designed for secure visualization in untrusted environments.