Deep Spectral Models for Robust Dental Shape Generation

Tibor Kubı́k1,2, François Guibault1, Michal Španěl2, Hervé Lombaert1
1: Polytechnique Montréal, Montréal, Canada, 2: Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic
Publication date: 2026/06/29
https://doi.org/10.59275/j.melba.2026-522e
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Abstract

Accurate modeling of dental crown morphology is fundamental for diagnosis, orthodontic planning, and computer-aided restoration design. However, datasets suitable for training such models are typically limited in size. We present ToothForge, a deep spectral generative framework that models dental crown geometries from compact, intrinsic representations. By operating in the spectral domain, ToothForge learns a latent manifold of 3D tooth shapes through synchronized spectral embeddings, ensuring consistent modeling across samples with varying connectivity. Spectral synchronization mitigates the instability of Laplace-Beltrami eigenbases and enables efficient learning in a low-dimensional space. The framework is thoroughly evaluated through robustness analysis, ablation studies, and benchmarking against PCA-based statistical shape models and point-based generative frameworks. Results show that synchronized spectral modeling achieves reconstruction and generative performance comparable to or exceeding spatial approaches, while maintaining compactness and geometric interpretability. Together, the compact synchronized coefficients and low-dimensional learning space make the framework particularly suitable for limited datasets, as often encountered in dental and medical domains, and applicable in real-world scenarios where guaranteeing consistent connectivity across shapes from various clinics is unrealistic.

Keywords

3D Tooth Shape Generation · Digital Dentistry · Spectral Shape Learning · Geometric Deep Learning

Bibtex @article{melba:2026:016:kubı́k, title = "Deep Spectral Models for Robust Dental Shape Generation", author = "Kubı́k, Tibor and Guibault, François and Španěl, Michal and Lombaert, Hervé", journal = "Machine Learning for Biomedical Imaging", volume = "2026", issue = "IPMI 2025 special issue", year = "2026", pages = "313--326", issn = "2766-905X", doi = "https://doi.org/10.59275/j.melba.2026-522e", url = "https://melba-journal.org/2026:016" }
RISTY - JOUR AU - Kubı́k, Tibor AU - Guibault, François AU - Španěl, Michal AU - Lombaert, Hervé PY - 2026 TI - Deep Spectral Models for Robust Dental Shape Generation T2 - Machine Learning for Biomedical Imaging VL - 2026 IS - IPMI 2025 special issue SP - 313 EP - 326 SN - 2766-905X DO - https://doi.org/10.59275/j.melba.2026-522e UR - https://melba-journal.org/2026:016 ER -

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