# Learning Shape-Independent Transformation via Spherical Representations for Category-Level Object Pose Estimation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13926 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13926/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Mar 2025.

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

- [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)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02413/) (2017)
- [Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.08415/) (2016)
- [Linformer: Self-Attention with Linear Complexity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04768/) (2020)
- [Normalized Object Coordinate Space for Category-Level 6D Object Pose and Size Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.02970/) (2019)
- [PVNet: Pixel-wise Voting Network for 6DoF Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11788/) (2018)
- [DenseFusion: 6D Object Pose Estimation by Iterative Dense Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.04780/) (2019)
- [Shape Prior Deformation for Categorical 6D Object Pose and Size Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08454/) (2020)
- [FS-Net: Fast Shape-based Network for Category-Level 6D Object Pose Estimation with Decoupled Rotation Mechanism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07054/) (2021)
- [DualPoseNet: Category-level 6D Object Pose and Size Estimation Using Dual Pose Network with Refined Learning of Pose Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06526/) (2021)
- [GPV-Pose: Category-level Object Pose Estimation via Geometry-guided Point-wise Voting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07918/) (2022)
- [You Only Demonstrate Once: Category-Level Manipulation from Single Visual Demonstration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12716/) (2022)
- [Category-Level 6D Object Pose and Size Estimation using Self-Supervised Deep Prior Deformation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05444/) (2022)
- [Category-Level 6D Object Pose Estimation via Cascaded Relation and Recurrent Reconstruction Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08755/) (2021)
- [SAR-Net: Shape Alignment and Recovery Network for Category-level 6D Object Pose and Size Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14193/) (2021)
- [HouseCat6D -- A Large-Scale Multi-Modal Category Level 6D Object Perception Dataset with Household Objects in Realistic Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10428/) (2022)
- [SecondPose: SE(3)-Consistent Dual-Stream Feature Fusion for Category-Level Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11125/) (2023)
- [HS-Pose: Hybrid Scope Feature Extraction for Category-level Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15743/) (2023)
- [GenPose: Generative Category-level Object Pose Estimation via Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10531/) (2023)
- [Instance-Adaptive and Geometric-Aware Keypoint Learning for Category-Level 6D Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19527/) (2024)
- [IST-Net: Prior-free Category-level Pose Estimation with Implicit Space Transformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13479/) (2023)
- [VI-Net: Boosting Category-level 6D Object Pose Estimation via Learning Decoupled Rotations on the Spherical Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09916/) (2023)
- [Improving Semantic Correspondence with Viewpoint-Guided Spherical Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13216/) (2023)
- [SOCS: Semantically-aware Object Coordinate Space for Category-Level 6D Object Pose Estimation under Large Shape Variations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10346/) (2023)
- [MFOS: Model-Free & One-Shot Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01897/) (2023)
- [3D Equivariant Pose Regression via Direct Wigner-D Harmonics Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00543/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [ComPose: A Unified Completion-Pose Framework for Robust Category-Level Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.25553/) (2026)
- [Structure-Aware Correspondence Learning for Relative Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18671/) (2025)
- [Instance-Adaptive Keypoint Learning with Local-to-Global Geometric Aggregation for Category-Level Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15134/) (2025)
- [MemPose: Category-level Object Pose Estimation with Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04930/) (2026)
- [Object Pose Transformer: Unifying Unseen Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23370/) (2026)
- [TSM-Pose: Topology-Aware Learning with Semantic Mamba for Category-Level Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16954/) (2026)
- [Symmetry-Aware 9D Pose Estimation with Sim(3)-Consistent Feature and Spherical Inception Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02219/) (2026)
- [PriorPose: Reference-Guided Joint Deformation and Alignment for Category-Level Object Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16727/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Category-level object pose estimation aims to determine the pose and size of novel objects in specific categories. Existing correspondence-based approaches typically adopt point-based representations to establish the correspondences between primitive observed points and normalized object coordinates. However, due to the inherent shape-dependence of canonical coordinates, these methods suffer from semantic incoherence across diverse object shapes. To resolve this issue, we innovatively leverage the sphere as a shared proxy shape of objects to learn shape-independent transformation via spherical representations. Based on this insight, we introduce a novel architecture called SpherePose, which yields precise correspondence prediction through three core designs. Firstly, We endow the point-wise feature extraction with SO(3)-invariance, which facilitates robust mapping between camera coordinate space and object coordinate space regardless of rotation transformation. Secondly, the spherical attention mechanism is designed to propagate and integrate features among spherical anchors from a comprehensive perspective, thus mitigating the interference of noise and incomplete point cloud. Lastly, a hyperbolic correspondence loss function is designed to distinguish subtle distinctions, which can promote the precision of correspondence prediction. Experimental results on CAMERA25, REAL275 and HouseCat6D benchmarks demonstrate the superior performance of our method, verifying the effectiveness of spherical representations and architectural innovations.