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Topic · Computational Mechanics

3D Shape Modeling and Analysis

3D Shape Modeling and Analysis is a research topic within Computational Mechanics. Science Explorer counts 27k research works in it since 1951. 9.8% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the analysis, reconstruction, and representation of three-dimensional shapes using deep learning techniques, point clouds, and mesh processing. It covers topics such as 3D classification, segmentation, object recognition, shape reconstruction from single images, surface parameterization, mesh deformation, and texture mapping.

  • Deep Learning
  • Point Clouds
  • 3D Reconstruction
  • Mesh Segmentation
  • Shape Representation
  • Neural Radiance Fields
  • Surface Parameterization
  • Mesh Deformation
  • Texture Mapping
  • Point Set Surfaces
Research works
27k
fractional, since 1951
In the world top 10%
2.6k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.8%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+87%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
56% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
3D Shape Modeling and Analysis

Which countries lead 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (3.5k and 939 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 3.5k works
  2. 2 United States 939 works
  3. 3 Germany 331 works
  4. 4 Japan 256 works
  5. 5 United Kingdom 236 works
  6. 6 South Korea 231 works
  7. 7 France 216 works
  8. 8 India 200 works
  9. 9 Canada 162 works
  10. 10 Italy 117 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 56.2%United States: 15.3%Germany: 5.4%Japan: 4.2%6 others listed: 18.9%56%largest
China3,452 · 56.2%United States939 · 15.3%Germany331 · 5.4%Japan256 · 4.2%6 others listed1,161 · 18.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research?

By volume in 2022-now, Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the most 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research, followed by Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 115 works
  2. 2 Tsinghua UniversityChina 112 works
  3. 3 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 92 works
  4. 4 Zhejiang UniversityChina 90 works
  5. 5 Peking UniversityChina 78 works
  6. 6 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 72 works
  7. 7 University of Science and Technology of ChinaChina 57 works
  8. 8 Beihang UniversityChina 54 works
  9. 9 Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 48 works
  10. 10 Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChina 43 works

Who are the leading researchers in 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis?

The most-cited researchers publishing on 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis include Geoffrey E. Hinton, Xiangyu Zhang and Dan J. Stein.

  1. 1 Geoffrey E. Hinton Canada 454k citations
  2. 2 Xiangyu Zhang 327k citations
  3. 3 Dan J. Stein South Africa 306k citations
  4. 4 Luigi Ferrucci United States 281k citations
  5. 5 Xiaogang Wang China 260k citations
  6. 6 Andrew Zisserman United Kingdom 255k citations
  7. 7 Li Fei-Fei United States 225k citations
  8. 8 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  9. 9 Stephen M. Smith United Kingdom 214k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis?

The most cited paper in 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis is "Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm" (William E. Lorensen, H. E. Cline, 1987), with 10,249 citations. Next come "PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation" (9,954) and "3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation" (7,911).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface construction algorithm William E. Lorensen, H. E. Cline Conference paperOpen access Aug 1987 10,249
2 PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation Raffaelli Charles, Hao Su, Kaichun Mo et al. Conference paper Jul 2017 9,954
3 3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation Özgün Çiçek, Ahmed Abdulkadir, Soeren S. Lienkamp et al. · Lecture notes in computer science Conference paper 2016 7,911
4 Extracting and composing robust features with denoising autoencoders Pascal Vincent, Hugo Larochelle, Yoshua Bengio et al. Conference paper 2008 7,452
5 Dynamic Graph CNN for Learning on Point Clouds Yue Wang, Yongbin Sun, Ziwei Liu et al. · ACM Transactions on Graphics Open access 10 Oct 2019 7,071
All 97 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research done?

The largest centres of 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Hangzhou (China) and Wuhan (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in San Jose.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 710 works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 316 works
  3. 3 HangzhouChina 212 works
  4. 4 WuhanChina 187 works
  5. 5 NanjingChina 179 works
  6. 6 Xi'anChina 170 works
  7. 7 ShenzhenChina 146 works
  8. 8 Hong KongChina 136 works
  9. 9 SeoulSouth Korea 120 works
  10. 10 GuangzhouChina 115 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. San JoseUS · 27.5 works11×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis than the world average.

See 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis on the map

Where is the best place to study 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis?

Among universities, judged by research, Tsinghua University, ETH Zurich and Stanford University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 20.72%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Stanford UniversityETH ZurichNanyang Technologica…Tsinghua University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Tsinghua UniversityChina 73.420.3%7.7×112 +205.9%
2ETH ZurichSwitzerland 71.923.3%7.4×32 +30.1%
3Stanford UniversityUnited States 68.026.3%3.0×28 +84.9%
4Nanyang Technological UniversitySingapore 66.921.0%9.6×48 +127.6%
5University of Hong KongChina 66.321.2%6.1×36 +244.6%
6Technical University of MunichGermany 66.221.8%6.8×38 +132.1%
7Peking UniversityChina 64.717.8%6.1×78 +222.5%
8Carnegie Mellon UniversityUnited States 64.019.6%12.9×34 +37.5%
9Chinese University of Hong KongChina 62.019.0%6.6×30 +81.6%
10Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 61.816.9%7.5×41 +248.4%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis, country by country

Is 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 87% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.032% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%3D Shape Modeling and Analysis0.034% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of 3D Shape Modeling and Analysis over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%3D Shape Modeling and Analysis9.6% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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