# NSF: Neural Surface Fields for Human Modeling from Monocular Depth

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.14847 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14847/

## Key facts

- Cited by 21 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 61 of its 91 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 61)

- [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)
- [Expressive Body Capture: 3D Hands, Face, and Body from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.05866/) (2019)
- [PIFu: Pixel-Aligned Implicit Function for High-Resolution Clothed Human Digitization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05172/) (2019)
- [Implicit Geometric Regularization for Learning Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10099/) (2020)
- [Neural Fields in Visual Computing and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11426/) (2021)
- [PIFuHD: Multi-Level Pixel-Aligned Implicit Function for High-Resolution 3D Human Digitization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00452/) (2020)
- [HumanNeRF: Free-viewpoint Rendering of Moving People from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.04127/) (2022)
- [Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03065/) (2020)
- [Animatable Neural Radiance Fields for Modeling Dynamic Human Bodies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.02872/) (2021)
- [Implicit Functions in Feature Space for 3D Shape Reconstruction and Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01456/) (2020)
- [ICON: Implicit Clothed humans Obtained from Normals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09127/) (2021)
- [3D Neural Field Generation using Triplane Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.16677/) (2022)
- [Neural Unsigned Distance Fields for Implicit Function Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13938/) (2020)
- [ARCH: Animatable Reconstruction of Clothed Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04572/) (2020)
- [BEHAVE: Dataset and Method for Tracking Human Object Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06950/) (2022)
- [Multi-Garment Net: Learning to Dress 3D People from Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06903/) (2019)
- [NeuMan: Neural Human Radiance Field from a Single Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12575/) (2022)
- [PaMIR: Parametric Model-Conditioned Implicit Representation for Image-based Human Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03858/) (2020)
- [SNARF: Differentiable Forward Skinning for Animating Non-Rigid Neural Implicit Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03953/) (2021)
- [Controlling Text-to-Image Diffusion by Orthogonal Finetuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07280/) (2023)
- [MeshDiffusion: Score-based Generative 3D Mesh Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08133/) (2023)
- [SCANimate: Weakly Supervised Learning of Skinned Clothed Avatar Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03313/) (2021)
- [Grasping Field: Learning Implicit Representations for Human Grasps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.04451/) (2020)
- [ARCH++: Animation-Ready Clothed Human Reconstruction Revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07845/) (2021)
- [TAVA: Template-free Animatable Volumetric Actors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08929/) (2022)
- [Learning to Reconstruct People in Clothing from a Single RGB Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.05885/) (2019)
- [TailorNet: Predicting Clothing in 3D as a Function of Human Pose, Shape and Garment Style](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.04583/) (2020)
- [Human POSEitioning System (HPS): 3D Human Pose Estimation and Self-localization in Large Scenes from Body-Mounted Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17265/) (2021)
- [Combining Implicit Function Learning and Parametric Models for 3D Human Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11432/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [Paint-it: Text-to-Texture Synthesis via Deep Convolutional Texture Map Optimization and Physically-Based Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11360/) (2023)
- [Human-3Diffusion: Realistic Avatar Creation via Explicit 3D Consistent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08475/) (2024)
- [DiffAvatar: Simulation-Ready Garment Optimization with Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12194/) (2023)
- [Text-Guided Generation and Editing of Compositional 3D Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07125/) (2023)
- [Ghost on the Shell: An Expressive Representation of General 3D Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15168/) (2023)
- [InterTrack: Tracking Human Object Interaction without Object Templates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13953/) (2024)
- [Dynamic Gaussians Mesh: Consistent Mesh Reconstruction from Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12379/) (2024)
- [Gen-3Diffusion: Realistic Image-to-3D Generation via 2D & 3D Diffusion Synergy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06698/) (2024)
- [GAN-Avatar: Controllable Personalized GAN-based Human Head Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13655/) (2023)
- [MetaCap: Meta-learning Priors from Multi-View Imagery for Sparse-view Human Performance Capture and Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18820/) (2024)
- [ClotheDreamer: Text-Guided Garment Generation with 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.16815/) (2024)
- [FRESA: Feedforward Reconstruction of Personalized Skinned Avatars from Few Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19207/) (2025)
- [GeoRelight: Learning Joint Geometrical Relighting and Reconstruction with Flexible Multi-Modal Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.20715/) (2026)
- [GRAFT: Geometric Refinement and Fitting Transformer for Human Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.19624/) (2026)
- [Weakly-Supervised 3D Reconstruction of Clothed Humans via Normal Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16042/) (2023)
- [NF3DM: Combining Neural Fields and Deformation Models for 3D Non-Rigid Motion Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08511/) (2024)
- [TagSplat: Topology-Aware Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic Mesh Modeling and Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.01329/) (2025)
- [textit4DSurf: High-Fidelity Dynamic Scene Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28064/) (2026)
- [Revisiting Avatar-As-Image: High-Fidelity Registration is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11722/) (2026)
- [MDNF: Multi-Diffusion-Nets for Neural Fields on Meshes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.03034/) (2024)
- [D-Prism: Differentiable Primitives for Structured Dynamic Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.17082/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Obtaining personalized 3D animatable avatars from a monocular camera has several real world applications in gaming, virtual try-on, animation, and VR/XR, etc. However, it is very challenging to model dynamic and fine-grained clothing deformations from such sparse data. Existing methods for modeling 3D humans from depth data have limitations in terms of computational efficiency, mesh coherency, and flexibility in resolution and topology. For instance, reconstructing shapes using implicit functions and extracting explicit meshes per frame is computationally expensive and cannot ensure coherent meshes across frames. Moreover, predicting per-vertex deformations on a pre-designed human template with a discrete surface lacks flexibility in resolution and topology. To overcome these limitations, we propose a novel method Neural Surface Fields for modeling 3D clothed humans from monocular depth. NSF defines a neural field solely on the base surface which models a continuous and flexible displacement field. NSF can be adapted to the base surface with different resolution and topology without retraining at inference time. Compared to existing approaches, our method eliminates the expensive per-frame surface extraction while maintaining mesh coherency, and is capable of reconstructing meshes with arbitrary resolution without retraining. To foster research in this direction, we release our code in project page at: https://yuxuan-xue.com/nsf.