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Abstract - Discovering Geometric Biases in 3D Face Reconstruction: A Curvature-Aware Spectral Framework for Fairness Evaluation
3D Morphable Models (3DMMs) remain the standard parametric shape priors for many state-of-the-art 3D face reconstruction algorithms. However, as these models are derived from a finite number of 3D face samples, they inherit the morphological biases of their training data, potentially limiting their generalizability across diverse global populations. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to analyze 3DMM reconstructions through the lens of surface curvature, with the objective to discover, quantify and visualize biases. While standard evaluation metrics often rely on Euclidean distances, our reconstruction error captures subtle surface nuances such as local topology or undulations. To do so, we leverage the Laplace-Beltrami Operator (LBO) to generate high-resolution curvature error maps, providing a localized and geometrically meaningful visualization of discrepancies between ground truth faces and reconstructed meshes. We derive from it an error metric that we validated through a user study, observing a significantly higher correlation to human perception compared to traditional methods. Furthermore, we conduct extensive experiments across several 3DMM bases and fitting algorithms, uncovering systematic age-related biases and providing preliminary evidence of biases associated with gender and ethnicity. Our findings highlight the necessity of adopting curvature-aware evaluation protocols to ensure demographic fairness and geometric precision in future 3D face reconstruction research.
发现三维人脸重建中的几何偏见:一种面向公平性评估的曲率感知谱框架 /
Discovering Geometric Biases in 3D Face Reconstruction: A Curvature-Aware Spectral Framework for Fairness Evaluation
1️⃣ 一句话总结
本文提出了一种基于表面曲率分析的评估框架,通过拉普拉斯-贝尔特拉米算子生成高分辨率曲率误差图,发现并可视化现有三维人脸重建模型在年龄、性别和种族上存在的系统性偏见,从而推动更公平、更精确的人脸重建研究。