Aspects of the present disclosure provide a method for compressing a point cloud. The method includes determining a sub-division technique for the volume based on one or more numbers derived from a distribution of points in the volume, dividing the volume into a number of sub-volumes according to the sub-division technique, and determining whether each sub-volume of the sub-volumes is occupied by at least one point. The method includes generating a bit sequence for the volume comprising a control code that is based on the sub-division technique and an occupancy indicator that indicates whether or not each sub-volume is occupied by at least one point.