ExMesh: EXplicit Mesh Reconstruction with Topology Adaptation

2026-06-05

AI Summary

Existing methods for surface mesh reconstruction from multi-view images often rely on intermediate representations and post-processing steps, which can introduce geometric artifacts and fragmented structures. Direct optimization of explicit meshes, while appealing, faces significant challenges in adaptive topology handling and maintaining UV coordinate consistency. This work proposes ExMesh, a novel framework that, for the first time, seamlessly integrates discrete topological operations—such as vertex splitting and merging—into a continuous, differentiable optimization pipeline, enabling end-to-end explicit mesh reconstruction. By dynamically preserving UV coordinates during topology updates and supporting coarse-to-fine geometric refinement, ExMesh achieves a favorable balance among reconstruction accuracy, mesh compactness, and computational efficiency, substantially outperforming current state-of-the-art approaches.

Abstract

Reconstructing surface meshes from multi-view images has remained a core challenge in recent years. Most existing methods, whether implicit or explicit, depend on intermediate representations and post-processing steps like Marching Cubes or TSDF fusion, often resulting in artifacts and fragmented geometry. Directly optimizing explicit meshes is a promising approach. However, it presents two critical challenges. The first is how to adaptively refine mesh topology to capture detail without introducing degenerate faces. The second is how to maintain consistent UV coordinates for high-fidelity texturing as the mesh structure evolves. To overcome these, we propose ExMesh, a novel framework that directly optimizes explicit meshes by integrating differentiable optimization with discrete topology updates. Specifically, we introduce an adaptive vertex splitting and merging strategy, along with real-time UV maintenance, to enable coarse-to-fine optimization while preserving geometric integrity. To our knowledge, ExMesh is the first framework to seamlessly integrate discrete topology operations into a continuous differentiable optimization pipeline. Extensive experiments demonstrate that ExMesh achieves a balance among accuracy, computational efficiency, and mesh conciseness.

Problem

• mesh reconstruction
• topology adaptation
• explicit mesh
• UV consistency
• multi-view images

Innovation

• explicit mesh reconstruction
• topology adaptation
• differentiable optimization
• UV coordinate maintenance
• vertex splitting and merging