# DGC-GNN: Leveraging Geometry and Color Cues for Visual Descriptor-Free 2D-3D Matching

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.12547 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12547/

## Key facts

- Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jun 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06450/) (2016)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [Sinkhorn Distances: Lightspeed Computation of Optimal Transportation Distances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1306.0895/) (2013)
- [Transformers are RNNs: Fast Autoregressive Transformers with Linear Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.16236/) (2020)
- [SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11763/) (2019)
- [SuperPoint: Self-Supervised Interest Point Detection and Description](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.07629/) (2017)
- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [LoFTR: Detector-Free Local Feature Matching with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00680/) (2021)
- [NetVLAD: CNN architecture for weakly supervised place recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07247/) (2015)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [MegaDepth: Learning Single-View Depth Prediction from Internet Photos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00607/) (2018)
- [From Coarse to Fine: Robust Hierarchical Localization at Large Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03506/) (2018)
- [D2-Net: A Trainable CNN for Joint Detection and Description of Local Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.03561/) (2019)
- [PREDATOR: Registration of 3D Point Clouds with Low Overlap](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13005/) (2020)
- [Generating Images with Perceptual Similarity Metrics based on Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.02644/) (2016)
- [Geometric Transformer for Fast and Robust Point Cloud Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.06688/) (2022)
- [Pixel-Perfect Structure-from-Motion with Featuremetric Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08291/) (2021)
- [Visual Camera Re-Localization from RGB and RGB-D Images Using DSAC](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.12324/) (2020)
- [Inverting Visual Representations with Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02753/) (2015)
- [CoFiNet: Reliable Coarse-to-fine Correspondences for Robust Point Cloud Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14076/) (2021)
- [Learning Multi-Scene Absolute Pose Regression with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11468/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Scene Coordinate Classification and Regression for Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06216/) (2019)
- [Revealing Scenes by Inverting Structure from Motion Reconstructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03303/) (2019)
- [ClusterGNN: Cluster-based Coarse-to-Fine Graph Neural Network for Efficient Feature Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11700/) (2022)
- [Is Geometry Enough for Matching in Visual Localization?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12979/) (2022)
- [Hybrid Scene Compression for Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.07512/) (2018)
- [Solving the Blind Perspective-n-Point Problem End-To-End With Robust Differentiable Geometric Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14628/) (2020)
- [NinjaDesc: Content-Concealing Visual Descriptors via Adversarial Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12785/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Reloc3r: Large-Scale Training of Relative Camera Pose Regression for Generalizable, Fast, and Accurate Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08376/) (2024)
- [R-SCoRe: Revisiting Scene Coordinate Regression for Robust Large-Scale Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.01421/) (2025)
- [LoD-Loc: Aerial Visual Localization using LoD 3D Map with Neural Wireframe Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12269/) (2024)
- [Differentiable Product Quantization for Memory Efficient Camera Relocalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15540/) (2024)
- [A Guide to Structureless Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17636/) (2025)
- [Deep Learning Reforms Image Matching: A Survey and Outlook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04619/) (2025)
- [GSVisLoc: Generalizable Visual Localization for Gaussian Splatting Scene Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18242/) (2025)
- [Video Understanding: From Geometry and Semantics to Unified Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17840/) (2026)
- [A2-GNN: Angle-Annular GNN for Visual Descriptor-free Camera Relocalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20036/) (2025)
- [ColabSfM: Collaborative Structure-from-Motion by Point Cloud Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17093/) (2025)
- [ImLoc: Revisiting Visual Localization with Image-based Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04185/) (2026)
- [Z-FLoc: Zero-Shot Floorplan Localization via Geometric Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04788/) (2026)
- [Visible Structure Retrieval for Lightweight Image-Based Relocalisation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12503/) (2025)
- [PlanaReLoc: Camera Relocalization in 3D Planar Primitives via Region-Based Structure Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.20818/) (2026)
- [Privacy-Preserving Structureless Visual Localization via Image Obfuscation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12068/) (2026)
- [Revisiting Geometric Obfuscation with Dual Convergent Lines for Privacy-Preserving Image Queries in Visual Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22310/) (2026)
- [GeoMix: Descriptor-Free Visual Localization via Global Context and Multi-Detector Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.02486/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Matching 2D keypoints in an image to a sparse 3D point cloud of the scene without requiring visual descriptors has garnered increased interest due to its low memory requirements, inherent privacy preservation, and reduced need for expensive 3D model maintenance compared to visual descriptor-based methods. However, existing algorithms often compromise on performance, resulting in a significant deterioration compared to their descriptor-based counterparts. In this paper, we introduce DGC-GNN, a novel algorithm that employs a global-to-local Graph Neural Network (GNN) that progressively exploits geometric and color cues to represent keypoints, thereby improving matching accuracy. Our procedure encodes both Euclidean and angular relations at a coarse level, forming the geometric embedding to guide the point matching. We evaluate DGC-GNN on both indoor and outdoor datasets, demonstrating that it not only doubles the accuracy of the state-of-the-art visual descriptor-free algorithm but also substantially narrows the performance gap between descriptor-based and descriptor-free methods.