Comparative Evaluation of 3D Reconstruction Methods for Immersive Visualization of Laboratory Objects
Authors: Brian De La Cruz, Aaron Y. Zhao, Maitrey Gramopadhye, Sawyer J. Lazar, Xianming Tan, Daniel Szafir, David S. Lawrence
Organizations: Department of Computer Science, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 27599 · Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 27599 · Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 27599 · Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Pharmacology, UNC School of Medicine, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 27599
In this study, we examined whether current 3D reconstruction methods can support the creation of realistic holographic representations of laboratory objects for educational use. In this regard, we compared four approaches: photogrammetry, a neural radiance field (NeRF)-based method, Gaussian splatting, and LiDAR. These methods were used to generate holographic models of common laboratory items and their fidelity was evaluated by graduate students. Participants assessed the models for shape, color, texture, and visual defects using a repeated-measures design. Across objects, the NeRF-based method produced the most consistently high-fidelity representations, particularly for transparent, reflective, or low-texture items that were difficult to capture with other approaches. Shape and color were generally reproduced more successfully than texture, suggesting that some visual properties remain more challenging to represent accurately in educational holograms. Beyond identifying the strengths and limitations of each reconstruction method, the study demonstrates a practical workflow for creating immersive learning objects that may support pre-laboratory preparation, spatial reasoning, and student engagement in AR/MR-based educational environments. These findings offer design-relevant insights for educators and researchers developing immersive digital learning experiences.
Autonomous robots performing laboratory tasks depend on 3D reconstruction pipelines that can turn raw camera streams into actionable object representations within the latency budget of a physical control loop. Neural 3D reconstruction methods have demonstrated high-quality view synthesis, but their real-time viability across the compute platforms on which laboratory robots actually run remains poorly characterized. In this work, we present a systematic compute-platform benchmark of neural 3D reconstruction methods, evaluating NeRF and 3D Gaussian Splatting training and rendering on GPU-enabled computing devices ranging from single-board computers to server-class nodes, and place Meta's SAM3D single-image reconstruction on the same axes to quantify its latency and fidelity gap relative to per-scene optimization. Our results show that Gaussian Splatting yields higher rendering quality than NeRF at greater GPU cost, and that onboard compute is insufficient for full per-scene optimization at interactive rates. Our preliminary assessment on SAM3D indicates that it delivers plausible object geometry within seconds, but with detail mismatches that can compromise downstream manipulation. Together, these findings motivate tiered pipelines in which lightweight feed-forward reconstruction sustains the real-time perception-and-tracking loop for laboratory robots, while heavier neural reconstruction is scheduled selectively on suitable compute.
Yongho Kim, Mengjiao Han, Victor Mateevitsi +3
Argonne National Laboratory · University of Illinois Chicago · NAISE, Northwestern University
Many real-world 3D reconstruction applications demand photorealism and metric accuracy across unbounded, complex scenes with challenging lighting and imperfect captures that current Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) pipelines only partly satisfy. This study adapts NeRF-based 3D reconstruction to multi-region of interest unbounded scenes to improve robustness to lighting and pose variation while enforcing metric accuracy suitable for digital-twin applications. Our approach introduces (i) automated local region localization/detection and reconstruction to seamlessly prioritize areas of interest without proliferating submodules, (ii) collinearity-enforcing ray sampling to learn smooth planar and curved surfaces, (iii) depth-localized neighborhood point extraction to suppress surface artifacts, and (iv) geometry-relevant color aggregation to mitigate lighting- and pose-caused variations. Results indicate superior performance of the proposed pipeline over the baseline NeRF models and established Structure from Motion (SfM) - Multi-View Stereo (MVS) solutions.
Recent advances in neural rendering have introduced numerous 3D scene representations. Although standard computer vision metrics evaluate the visual quality of generated images, they often overlook the fidelity of surface geometry. This limitation is particularly critical in robotics, where accurate geometry is essential for tasks such as grasping and object manipulation. In this paper, we present an evaluation pipeline for neural rendering methods that focuses on geometric accuracy, along with a benchmark comprising 19 diverse scenes. Our approach enables a systematic assessment of reconstruction methods in terms of surface and shape fidelity, complementing traditional visual metrics.