mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

High-Fidelity Medical Shape Generation via Skeletal Latent Diffusion

arXiv 2603.07504 ↗First posted 8 Mar 2026cs.CVcited by 1

On the map: Diffusion models → Medical imaging and segmentation

Abstract (arXiv)

Anatomy shape modeling is a fundamental problem in medical data analysis. However, the geometric complexity and topological variability of anatomical structures pose significant challenges to accurate anatomical shape generation. In this work, we propose a skeletal latent diffusion framework that explicitly incorporates structural priors for efficient and high-fidelity medical shape generation. We introduce a shape auto-encoder in which the encoder captures global geometric information through a differentiable skeletonization module and aggregates local surface features into shape latents, while the decoder predicts the corresponding implicit fields over sparsely sampled coordinates. New shapes are generated via a latent-space diffusion model, followed by neural implicit decoding and mesh extraction. To address the limited availability of medical shape data, we construct a large-scale dataset, textitMedSDF, comprising surface point clouds and corresponding signed distance fields across multiple anatomical categories. Extensive experiments on MedSDF and vessel datasets demonstrate that the proposed method achieves superior reconstruction and generation quality while maintaining a higher computational efficiency compared with existing approaches. Code is available at: https://github.com/wlsdzyzl/meshage.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Medical imaging and segmentation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 28 of its 43 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Mar 2026.

Builds on

28 of 43 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 20243D Vessel Graph Generation Using Denoising Diffusion8 Jul
  2. 2024TrIND: Representing Anatomical Trees by Denoising Diffusion of Implicit Neural Fields13 Mar

Other references · 26

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
  3. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  4. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
  5. 2016PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentationcited by 5,223
  6. 2017PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Spacecited by 4,384
  7. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 2,994
  8. 2019DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representationcited by 2,682
  9. 2018Dynamic Graph CNN for Learning on Point Cloudscited by 2,220
  10. 2021Diffusion Probabilistic Models for 3D Point Cloud Generationcited by 734
  11. 2020PCT: Point cloud transformercited by 730
  12. 2022LION: Latent Point Diffusion Models for 3D Shape Generationcited by 552
14 more
  1. 20213D Shape Generation and Completion through Point-Voxel Diffusioncited by 516
  2. 2019PointFlow: 3D Point Cloud Generation with Continuous Normalizing Flowscited by 487
  3. 20233DShape2VecSet: A 3D Shape Representation for Neural Fields and Generative Diffusion Modelscited by 449
  4. 2022SDFusion: Multimodal 3D Shape Completion, Reconstruction, and Generationcited by 287
  5. 2022ImageCAS: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Coronary Artery Segmentation based on Computed Tomography Angiography Imagescited by 54
  6. 2020Point2Skeleton: Learning Skeletal Representations from Point Cloudscited by 37
  7. 2023MedShapeNet -- A Large-Scale Dataset of 3D Medical Shapes for Computer Visioncited by 31
  8. 2023Neural Wavelet-domain Diffusion for 3D Shape Generation, Inversion, and Manipulationcited by 27
  9. 2024LaGeM: A Large Geometry Model for 3D Representation Learning and Diffusioncited by 16
  10. 2022Computing Medial Axis Transform with Feature Preservation via Restricted Power Diagramcited by 15
  11. 2024GEM3D: GEnerative Medial Abstractions for 3D Shape Synthesiscited by 12
  12. 2025Hierarchical Part-based Generative Model for Realistic 3D Blood Vesselcited by 4
  13. 2024Flemme: A Flexible and Modular Learning Platform for Medical Imagescited by 3
  14. 2025Hierarchical Feature Learning for Medical Point Clouds via State Space Modelcited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.

1 paper.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026MorphoFlow: Sparse-Supervised Generative Shape Modeling with Adaptive Latent Relevance
  2. 2023Mesh2SSM: From Surface Meshes to Statistical Shape Models of Anatomy
  3. 2024Part-aware Shape Generation with Latent 3D Diffusion of Neural Voxel Fields
  4. 2025Mesh2SSM++: A Probabilistic Framework for Unsupervised Learning of Statistical Shape Model of Anatomies from Surface Meshes
  5. 20243D MedDiffusion: A 3D Medical Latent Diffusion Model for Controllable and High-quality Medical Image Generation
  6. 20223D-LDM: Neural Implicit 3D Shape Generation with Latent Diffusion Models
  7. 2024Point2SSM++: Self-Supervised Learning of Anatomical Shape Models from Point Clouds
  8. 2024Topology-Aware Latent Diffusion for 3D Shape Generation