# Facial Geometric Detail Recovery via Implicit Representation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.09692 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09692/

## Key facts

- Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 51 of its 77 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Mar 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Occupancy Networks: Learning 3D Reconstruction in Function Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03828/) (2018)
- [Learning Implicit Fields for Generative Shape Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02822/) (2018)
- [Accelerating 3D Deep Learning with PyTorch3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08501/) (2020)
- [Convolutional Occupancy Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.04618/) (2020)
- [Implicit Geometric Regularization for Learning Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10099/) (2020)
- [Differentiable Volumetric Rendering: Learning Implicit 3D Representations without 3D Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.07372/) (2019)
- [Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14808/) (2020)
- [MaskGAN: Towards Diverse and Interactive Facial Image Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11922/) (2019)
- [Accurate 3D Face Reconstruction with Weakly-Supervised Learning: From Single Image to Image Set](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08527/) (2019)
- [Learning an Animatable Detailed 3D Face Model from In-The-Wild Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04012/) (2020)
- [SAL: Sign Agnostic Learning of Shapes from Raw Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10414/) (2019)
- [Neural Unsigned Distance Fields for Implicit Function Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13938/) (2020)
- [Neural Voice Puppetry: Audio-driven Facial Reenactment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05566/) (2019)
- [FaceScape: a Large-scale High Quality 3D Face Dataset and Detailed Riggable 3D Face Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13989/) (2020)
- [DIST: Rendering Deep Implicit Signed Distance Function with Differentiable Sphere Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.13225/) (2019)
- [Learning to Regress 3D Face Shape and Expression from an Image without 3D Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.06817/) (2019)
- [SDFDiff: Differentiable Rendering of Signed Distance Fields for 3D Shape Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.07109/) (2019)
- [GANFIT: Generative Adversarial Network Fitting for High Fidelity 3D Face Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.05978/) (2019)
- [Neural-Pull: Learning Signed Distance Functions from Point Clouds by Learning to Pull Space onto Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13495/) (2020)
- [SALD: Sign Agnostic Learning with Derivatives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05400/) (2020)
- [SfSNet: Learning Shape, Reflectance and Illuminance of Faces in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01261/) (2017)
- [Unsupervised Training for 3D Morphable Model Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.06098/) (2018)
- [Self-supervised Multi-level Face Model Learning for Monocular Reconstruction at over 250 Hz](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.02859/) (2017)
- [Towards High-fidelity Nonlinear 3D Face Morphable Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04933/) (2019)
- [AvatarMe: Realistically Renderable 3D Facial Reconstruction "in-the-wild"](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13845/) (2020)
- [H3D-Net: Few-Shot High-Fidelity 3D Head Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.12512/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Hallo3: Highly Dynamic and Realistic Portrait Image Animation with Video Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00733/) (2024)
- [HunyuanCustom: A Multimodal-Driven Architecture for Customized Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.04512/) (2025)
- [HunyuanVideo-Avatar: High-Fidelity Audio-Driven Human Animation for Multiple Characters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20156/) (2025)
- [VideoGen-of-Thought: Step-by-step generating multi-shot video with minimal manual intervention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15138/) (2025)
- [WithAnyone: Towards Controllable and ID Consistent Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14975/) (2025)
- [Implicit Neural Head Synthesis via Controllable Local Deformation Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11113/) (2023)
- [ComfyGPT: A Self-Optimizing Multi-Agent System for Comprehensive ComfyUI Workflow Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17671/) (2025)
- [HQ3DAvatar: High Quality Controllable 3D Head Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14471/) (2023)
- [Topo4D: Topology-Preserving Gaussian Splatting for High-Fidelity 4D Head Capture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00440/) (2024)
- [The DeepSpeak Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.05366/) (2024)
- [VideoGen-of-Thought: Step-by-step generating multi-shot video with minimal manual intervention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02259/) (2024)
- [FaVChat: Hierarchical Prompt-Query Guided Facial Video Understanding with Data-Efficient GRPO](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09158/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking Unified Face Attack Detection via Hierarchical Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13327/) (2025)
- [StyleTailor: Towards Personalized Fashion Styling via Hierarchical Negative Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06555/) (2025)
- [MMA-ASIA: A Multilingual and Multimodal Alignment Framework for Culturally-Grounded Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08608/) (2025)
- [FakeParts: a New Family of AI-Generated DeepFakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.21052/) (2025)
- [OmniCustom: Sync Audio-Video Customization Via Joint Audio-Video Generation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12304/) (2026)
- [High-Fidelity Facial Albedo Estimation via Texture Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13149/) (2024)
- [When Algorithms Play Favorites: Lookism in the Generation and Perception of Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11025/) (2025)
- [Aesthetics as Structural Harm: Algorithmic Lookism Across Text-to-Image Generation and Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11651/) (2026)
- [HARMONI: Multimodal Personalization of Multi-User Human-Robot Interactions with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19839/) (2026)
- [Skullptor: High Fidelity 3D Head Reconstruction in Seconds with Multi-View Normal Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21100/) (2026)
- [Beyond Wide-Angle Images: Structure-to-Detail Video Portrait Correction via Unsupervised Spatiotemporal Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00401/) (2025)
- [Fusion-SSAT: Unleashing the Potential of Self-supervised Auxiliary Task by Feature Fusion for Generalized Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00789/) (2026)
- [SARS: A Novel Face and Body Shape and Appearance Aware 3D Reconstruction System extends Morphable Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09918/) (2026)
- [Can Agents Read the Room? Benchmarking Visual Social Intelligence in Multimodal Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15152/) (2026)
- [Diff-ID: Identity Consistent Facial Image Generation and Morphing via Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25078/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Learning a dense 3D model with fine-scale details from a single facial image is highly challenging and ill-posed. To address this problem, many approaches fit smooth geometries through facial prior while learning details as additional displacement maps or personalized basis. However, these techniques typically require vast datasets of paired multi-view data or 3D scans, whereas such datasets are scarce and expensive. To alleviate heavy data dependency, we present a robust texture-guided geometric detail recovery approach using only a single in-the-wild facial image. More specifically, our method combines high-quality texture completion with the powerful expressiveness of implicit surfaces. Initially, we inpaint occluded facial parts, generate complete textures, and build an accurate multi-view dataset of the same subject. In order to estimate the detailed geometry, we define an implicit signed distance function and employ a physically-based implicit renderer to reconstruct fine geometric details from the generated multi-view images. Our method not only recovers accurate facial details but also decomposes normals, albedos, and shading parts in a self-supervised way. Finally, we register the implicit shape details to a 3D Morphable Model template, which can be used in traditional modeling and rendering pipelines. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed approach can reconstruct impressive facial details from a single image, especially when compared with state-of-the-art methods trained on large datasets.