# ExMesh++: From Multi-View Images to Relightable UV-PBR Mesh Assets via Topology-Adaptive Reconstruction and Decomposition

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.24109 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.24109/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [Volume Rendering of Neural Implicit Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12052/) (2021)
- [Depth Anything 3: Recovering the Visual Space from Any Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.10647/) (2025)
- [UNISURF: Unifying Neural Implicit Surfaces and Radiance Fields for Multi-View Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10078/) (2021)
- [Neuralangelo: High-Fidelity Neural Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03092/) (2023)
- [Modular Primitives for High-Performance Differentiable Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03277/) (2020)
- [Neural 3D Mesh Renderer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07566/) (2017)
- [Soft Rasterizer: A Differentiable Renderer for Image-based 3D Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01786/) (2019)
- [PGSR: Planar-based Gaussian Splatting for Efficient and High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06521/) (2024)
- [GS-IR: 3D Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16473/) (2023)
- [Geo-Neus: Geometry-Consistent Neural Implicit Surfaces Learning for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15848/) (2022)
- [Modeling Indirect Illumination for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06837/) (2022)
- [Shape, Light, and Material Decomposition from Images using Monte Carlo Rendering and Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03380/) (2022)
- [NeuMesh: Learning Disentangled Neural Mesh-based Implicit Field for Geometry and Texture Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.11911/) (2022)
- [Flexible Isosurface Extraction for Gradient-Based Mesh Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05371/) (2023)
- [NeILF: Neural Incident Light Field for Physically-based Material Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07182/) (2022)
- [NeuTex: Neural Texture Mapping for Volumetric Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00762/) (2021)
- [NeILF++: Inter-Reflectable Light Fields for Geometry and Material Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17147/) (2023)
- [Stanford-ORB: A Real-World 3D Object Inverse Rendering Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16044/) (2023)
- [NeFII: Inverse Rendering for Reflectance Decomposition with Near-Field Indirect Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16617/) (2023)
- [SVG-IR: Spatially-Varying Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06815/) (2025)
- [GeoSplatting: Towards Geometry Guided Gaussian Splatting for Physically-based Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24204/) (2024)
- [Quadratic Gaussian Splatting: High Quality Surface Reconstruction with Second-order Geometric Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16392/) (2024)
- [DMesh++: An Efficient Differentiable Mesh for Complex Shapes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16776/) (2024)
- [Inverse Rendering using Multi-Bounce Path Tracing and Reservoir Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.16360/) (2024)
- [ExMesh: Explicit Mesh Reconstruction with Topology Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.07288/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Multi-view reconstruction extends beyond surface recovery to editable and relightable mesh assets. Such assets require well-formed topology, valid UV parameterization, and explicit PBR material maps. Existing surface reconstruction approaches optimize implicit fields, Gaussian primitives, or other intermediate representations. Converting them into such assets often requires surface extraction and texture baking. Inverse-rendering methods estimate materials and illumination, yet these components often remain tied to neural fields or point-based primitives rather than the final mesh. Joint optimization of geometry, materials, and lighting may also allow these variables to compensate for one another, leading to ambiguous decomposition. To address these limitations, we present ExMesh++, a staged framework for reconstructing relightable UV-PBR mesh assets from multi-view images. The first stage refines explicit mesh geometry and topology through adaptive vertex splitting and merging, while maintaining UV consistency as the topology changes. The second stage fixes the resulting mesh-UV carrier and optimizes UV-space PBR maps together with environment lighting. Building on this stable carrier, ExMesh++ models one-bounce diffuse indirect illumination through secondary-ray tracing with shared UV-PBR materials. Experiments demonstrate competitive geometry accuracy, strong relighting performance, and direct usability of the exported assets in standard DCC workflows.