Survey of Latest Advancements in Deep Learning for Point Cloud Completion

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Authors: Alessio Romanelli, Michaela Servi, Roberto Magherini, Monica Carfagni, Yary Volpe
Cited by: 1
References: 118

Abstract

Point clouds have become a widely used data format in computer vision, driven by the increasing availability of 3D scanning devices in applications such as robotics and autonomous driving. However, challenges in data acquisition, such as occlusion, reflection, and limited sensor resolution, often result in incomplete scans. Consequently, point cloud completion, the task of reconstructing the complete geometry of a point cloud object from partial data, has emerged as a key area of research. Numerous deep learning-based methods have been proposed to tackle this problem. Although some surveys on shape completion exist, the rapid growth of research in recent years calls for an updated review. In this work, we present a comprehensive survey of recent advancements in deep neural networks for point cloud completion, covering literature from 2024 up to December 2025. After establishing a reference context by analyzing the major foundational methods up to the year 2023, we review the most recent methods with an analytical perspective based on how they have improved each specific component of the network. Furthermore, we present a comparative analysis of the performance of the reviewed methods on the main benchmark datasets, and finally, we discuss open challenges, offering insights and suggestions for future research directions.

Fields of Study & Subjects

3D Shape Modeling and Analysis Model Reduction and Neural Networks Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Inference

Publication details

Journal / source
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Volume
32
Issue
7
Pages
7321–7340
Publication date
26 February 2026
Language
EN