Variational Surface Reconstruction Using Natural Neighbors

Washington University in Saint Louis
SIGGRAPH 2025 Best Paper Honorable Mention
Simplicial Grids Illustration

Given a point cloud without normals (a) that sparsely samples a thin Helmet (from [Laric 2012], 100K samples), the state-of-the-art normal estimation method [Lin et al. 2024] results in a “holy” helmet (b), while the latest learning-based reconstruction method [Erler et al. 2024] smears the facial features (c). Our method (NN-VIPSS) closely approximates the ground truth (e). Close-up views show a cross-section of the surface.

Abstract

Surface reconstruction from points is a fundamental problem in computer graphics. While numerous methods have been proposed, it remains challenging to reconstruct from sparse and non-uniform point distributions, particularly when normals are absent. We present a robust and scalable method for reconstructing an implicit surface from points without normals. By exploring the locality of natural neighborhoods, we propose local reformulations of a previous global method, known for its ability to surface sparse points but high computational cost, thereby significantly improving its scalability while retaining its robustness. Our method involves a single parameter, requires no discretization, and achieves comparable speed as existing reconstruction methods on large inputs while producing fewer artifacts in under-sampled regions.

Paper:

BibTeX

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