# Stereophotoclinometry Revisited

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.08252 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08252/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 16 of its 101 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.05830/) (2016)
- [RoMa: Robust Dense Feature Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15404/) (2023)
- [A Hierarchical 3D Gaussian Representation for Real-Time Rendering of Very Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12080/) (2024)
- [On-Manifold Preintegration for Real-Time Visual-Inertial Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02363/) (2015)
- [Deep 3D Capture: Geometry and Reflectance from Sparse Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12642/) (2020)
- [PS-FCN: A Flexible Learning Framework for Photometric Stereo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.08696/) (2018)
- [A Differential Volumetric Approach to Multi-View Photometric Stereo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.01984/) (2018)
- [Multi-View Photometric Stereo Revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07670/) (2022)
- [AstroVision: Towards Autonomous Feature Detection and Description for Missions to Small Bodies Using Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.02053/) (2022)
- [Deep Learning Methods for Calibrated Photometric Stereo and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08414/) (2022)
- [Distributed Global Structure-from-Motion with a Deep Front-End](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18801/) (2023)
- [AstroSLAM: Autonomous Monocular Navigation in the Vicinity of a Celestial Small Body -- Theory and Experiments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00350/) (2022)
- [Mission Design of DESTINY+: Toward Active Asteroid (3200) Phaethon and Multiple Small Bodies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01933/) (2022)
- [Keypoint-based Stereophotoclinometry for Characterizing and Navigating Small Bodies: A Factor Graph Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06865/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [AstroSplat: Physics-Based Gaussian Splatting for Rendering and Reconstruction of Small Celestial Bodies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11969/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image-based surface reconstruction and characterization is crucial for missions to small celestial bodies, as it informs mission planning, navigation, and scientific analysis. However, current state-of-the-practice methods, such as stereophotoclinometry (SPC), rely heavily on human-in-the-loop verification and high-fidelity a priori information. This paper proposes Photoclinometry-from-Motion (PhoMo), a novel framework that incorporates photoclinometry techniques into a keypoint-based structure-from-motion (SfM) system to estimate the surface normal and albedo at detected landmarks to improve autonomous surface and shape characterization of small celestial bodies from in-situ imagery. In contrast to SPC, we forego the expensive maplet estimation step and instead use dense keypoint measurements and correspondences from an autonomous keypoint detection and matching method based on deep learning. Moreover, we develop a factor graph-based approach allowing for simultaneous optimization of the spacecraft's pose, landmark positions, Sun-relative direction, and surface normals and albedos via fusion of Sun vector measurements and image keypoint measurements. The proposed framework is validated on real imagery taken by the Dawn mission to the asteroid 4 Vesta and the minor planet 1 Ceres and compared against an SPC reconstruction, where we demonstrate superior rendering performance compared to an SPC solution and precise alignment to a stereophotogrammetry (SPG) solution without relying on any a priori camera pose and topography information or humans-in-the-loop.