# Tactile Mapping and Localization from High-Resolution Tactile Imprints

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.10944 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.10944/

## Key facts

- Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 24 Apr 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Aligning Cyber Space with Physical World: A Comprehensive Survey on Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06886/) (2024)
- [GelSight Wedge: Measuring High-Resolution 3D Contact Geometry with a Compact Robot Finger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08851/) (2021)
- [Neural feels with neural fields: Visuo-tactile perception for in-hand manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13469/) (2023)
- [Tac2Pose: Tactile Object Pose Estimation from the First Touch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11701/) (2022)
- [FingerSLAM: Closed-loop Unknown Object Localization and Reconstruction from Visuo-tactile Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07997/) (2023)
- [Dynamic Modeling of Hand-Object Interactions via Tactile Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04378/) (2021)
- [GelSLAM: A Real-time, High-Fidelity, and Robust 3D Tactile SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15990/) (2025)
- [TactoFind: A Tactile Only System for Object Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13482/) (2023)
- [V-HOP: Visuo-Haptic 6D Object Pose Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17434/) (2025)
- [Monocular Depth Estimation for Soft Visuotactile Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01677/) (2021)
- [Learning to Synthesize Volumetric Meshes from Vision-based Tactile Imprints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.15155/) (2022)
- [ViTa-Zero: Zero-shot Visuotactile Object 6D Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13179/) (2025)
- [Tactile Image-to-Image Disentanglement of Contact Geometry from Motion-Induced Shear](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.03615/) (2021)
- [Enactive Artificial Intelligence: Subverting Gender Norms in Robot-Human Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.08741/) (2023)
- [VisTa3D: A Dataset and Benchmark for Thin Object Reconstruction from Vision, Tactile, and 3D Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.20740/) (2026)
- [Semi-Supervised Disentanglement of Tactile Contact~Geometry from Sliding-Induced Shear](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12500/) (2022)
- [UniTac2Pose: A Unified Approach Learned in Simulation for Category-level Visuotactile In-hand Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.15934/) (2025)
- [TACTFUL: Tactile-Driven Exploration For Object Localization and Identification in Confined Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.24712/) (2026)
- [VTLoc: Learning-based Tactile Contact Localization in Visual Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16146/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This work studies the problem of shape reconstruction and object localization using a vision-based tactile sensor, GelSlim. The main contributions are the recovery of local shapes from contact, an approach to reconstruct the tactile shape of objects from tactile imprints, and an accurate method for object localization of previously reconstructed objects. The algorithms can be applied to a large variety of 3D objects and provide accurate tactile feedback for in-hand manipulation. Results show that by exploiting the dense tactile information we can reconstruct the shape of objects with high accuracy and do on-line object identification and localization, opening the door to reactive manipulation guided by tactile sensing. We provide videos and supplemental information in the project's website http://web.mit.edu/mcube/research/tactile_localization.html.