# Skull-to-Face: Anatomy-Guided 3D Facial Reconstruction and Editing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16207 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16207/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 72 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Efficient Geometry-aware 3D Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07945/) (2021)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [StyleCLIP: Text-Driven Manipulation of StyleGAN Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17249/) (2021)
- [Learning an Animatable Detailed 3D Face Model from In-The-Wild Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04012/) (2020)
- [Rodin: A Generative Model for Sculpting 3D Digital Avatars Using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06135/) (2022)
- [Generating 3D faces using Convolutional Mesh Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10267/) (2018)
- [Depth-Aware Generative Adversarial Network for Talking Head Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06605/) (2022)
- [PanoHead: Geometry-Aware 3D Full-Head Synthesis in 360circ](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13071/) (2023)
- [Only a Matter of Style: Age Transformation Using a Style-Based Regression Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02754/) (2021)
- [Generating High Fidelity Data from Low-density Regions using Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.17260/) (2022)
- [GAGAN: Geometry-Aware Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00684/) (2017)
- [Superimposition-guided Facial Reconstruction from Skull](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00107/) (2018)
- [A method for automatic forensic facial reconstruction based on dense statistics of soft tissue thickness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.07334/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [BFSM: 3D Bidirectional Face-Skull Morphable Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24577/) (2025)
- [Facial Surgery Preview Based on the Orthognathic Treatment Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11045/) (2024)
- [RAGMesh with FaME-G2E: Long-Form Text-Driven 3D Face Generation and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09186/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deducing the 3D face from a skull is a challenging task in forensic science and archaeology. This paper proposes an end-to-end 3D face reconstruction pipeline and an exploration method that can conveniently create textured, realistic faces that match the given skull. To this end, we propose a tissue-guided face creation and adaptation scheme. With the help of the state-of-the-art text-to-image diffusion model and parametric face model, we first generate an initial reference 3D face, whose biological profile aligns with the given skull. Then, with the help of tissue thickness distribution, we modify these initial faces to match the skull through a latent optimization process. The joint distribution of tissue thickness is learned on a set of skull landmarks using a collection of scanned skull-face pairs. We also develop an efficient face adaptation tool to allow users to interactively adjust tissue thickness either globally or at local regions to explore different plausible faces. Experiments conducted on a real skull-face dataset demonstrated the effectiveness of our proposed pipeline in terms of reconstruction accuracy, diversity, and stability. Our project page is https://xmlyqing00.github.io/skull-to-face-page.