Differentiable Micro-Mesh Construction

Yishun Dou, Zhong Zheng, Qiaoqiao Jin, Rui Shi, Yuhan Li, Bingbing Ni

Abstract: Micro-mesh (μ-mesh.) is a new graphics primitive for compact representation of extreme geometry, consisting of a low-polygon base mesh enriched by per micro-vertex displacement. A new generation of GPUs supports this structure with hardware evolution on μ-mesh ray tracing, achieving real-time rendering in pixel level geometric details. In this article, we present a differentiable framework to convert standard meshes into this efficient format, offering a holistic scheme in contrast to the previous stage-based methods. In our construction context, a μ-mesh is defined where each base triangle is a parametric primitive, which is then reparameterized with Laplacian operators for efficient geometry optimization. Our framework offers numerous advantages for high-quality μ-mesh production: (i) end-to-end geometry optimization and displacement baking; (ii) enabling the differentiation of renderings with respect to μ-mesh for faithful reprojectability; (iii) high scalability for integrating useful features for μ-mesh production and rendering, such as minimizing shell volume, maintaining the isotropy of the base mesh, and visual-guided adaptive level of detail. Extensive experiments on μ-mesh construction for a large set of high-resolution meshes demonstrate the superior quality achieved by the proposed scheme.