fVDB: A Deep-Learning Framework for Sparse, Large Scale, and High Performance Spatial Intelligence

F Williams, J Huang, J Swartz, G Klar… - ACM Transactions on …, 2024 - dl.acm.org
ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2024dl.acm.org
We present f VDB, a novel GPU-optimized framework for deep learning on large-scale 3D
data. f VDB provides a complete set of differentiable primitives to build deep learning
architectures for common tasks in 3D learning such as convolution, pooling, attention, ray-
tracing, meshing, etc. f VDB simultaneously provides a much larger feature set (primitives
and operators) than established frameworks with no loss in efficiency: our operators match
or exceed the performance of other frameworks with narrower scope. Furthermore, f VDB …
We present fVDB, a novel GPU-optimized framework for deep learning on large-scale 3D data. fVDB provides a complete set of differentiable primitives to build deep learning architectures for common tasks in 3D learning such as convolution, pooling, attention, ray-tracing, meshing, etc. fVDB simultaneously provides a much larger feature set (primitives and operators) than established frameworks with no loss in efficiency: our operators match or exceed the performance of other frameworks with narrower scope. Furthermore, fVDB can process datasets with much larger footprint and spatial resolution than prior works, while providing a competitive memory footprint on small inputs. To achieve this combination of versatility and performance, fVDB relies on a single novel VDB index grid acceleration structure paired with several key innovations including GPU accelerated sparse grid construction, convolution using tensorcores, fast ray tracing kernels using a Hierarchical Digital Differential Analyzer algorithm (HDDA), and jagged tensors. Our framework is fully integrated with PyTorch enabling interoperability with existing pipelines, and we demonstrate its effectiveness on a number of representative tasks such as large-scale point-cloud segmentation, high resolution 3D generative modeling, unbounded scale Neural Radiance Fields, and large-scale point cloud reconstruction.
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