Learning Scene-Level Signed Directional Distance Function With Ellipsoidal Priors and Neural Residuals

Area of Science:

• 3D Computer Vision
• Computer Graphics
• Neural Rendering

Background:

• Neural implicit representations offer advantages over discrete methods in 3D vision.
• Existing methods like NeRF and SDF networks face rendering inefficiencies and geometric accuracy challenges.
• NeRF and Gaussian Splatting excel in photometric reconstruction but need careful supervision for geometry.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel 3D representation, the signed directional distance function (SDDF), addressing limitations of current neural implicit models.
• To achieve accurate geometric reconstruction and efficient, differentiable directional distance prediction.
• To develop a hybrid representation combining explicit priors and implicit residuals for efficient scene-level SDDF learning.

Main Methods:

• Introduced the signed directional distance function (SDDF) as a novel 3D representation.
• Developed a differentiable hybrid representation using ellipsoid priors and neural residuals.
• Evaluated SDDF against state-of-the-art methods including NeRF and Gaussian Splatting.

Main Results:

• SDDF achieves competitive prediction accuracy.
• SDDF demonstrates faster prediction speeds compared to SDF and NeRF.
• SDDF shows superior geometric consistency over NeRF and Gaussian Splatting.

Conclusions:

• SDDF offers a promising new direction for 3D reconstruction and differentiable rendering.
• The hybrid approach effectively handles distance discontinuities while maintaining high-fidelity predictions.
• SDDF presents a significant advancement in balancing reconstruction accuracy, rendering efficiency, and geometric consistency.