Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection

LiDAR-based 3D object detection is fundamental in autonomous driving but remains challenging due to the irregularity, unordered nature, and non-uniform density of point clouds. Existing methods primarily rely on either graph-based or tree-based representations: Graph-based models capture fine-graine...

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Main Authors: Jingwen Zhao, Jianchao Li, Wei Zhou, Haohao Ren, Yunliang Long, Haifeng Hu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-06-01
Series:Remote Sensing
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2177
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author Jingwen Zhao
Jianchao Li
Wei Zhou
Haohao Ren
Yunliang Long
Haifeng Hu
author_facet Jingwen Zhao
Jianchao Li
Wei Zhou
Haohao Ren
Yunliang Long
Haifeng Hu
author_sort Jingwen Zhao
collection DOAJ
description LiDAR-based 3D object detection is fundamental in autonomous driving but remains challenging due to the irregularity, unordered nature, and non-uniform density of point clouds. Existing methods primarily rely on either graph-based or tree-based representations: Graph-based models capture fine-grained local geometry, while tree-based approaches encode hierarchical global semantics. However, these paradigms are often used independently, limiting their overall representational capacity. In this paper, we propose density-aware tree–graph cross-message passing (DA-TGCMP), a unified framework that exploits the complementary strengths of both structures to enable more expressive and robust feature learning. Specifically, we introduce a density-aware graph construction (DAGC) strategy that adaptively models geometric relationships in regions with varying point density and a hierarchical tree representation (HTR) that captures multi-scale contextual information. To bridge the gap between local precision and global contexts, we design a tree–graph cross-message-passing (TGCMP) mechanism that enables bidirectional interaction between graph and tree features. The experimental results of three large-scale benchmarks, KITTI, nuScenes, and Waymo, show that our method achieves competitive performance. Specifically, under the moderate difficulty setting, DA-TGCMP outperforms VoPiFNet by approximately 2.59%, 0.49%, and 3.05% in the car, pedestrian, and cyclist categories, respectively.
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series Remote Sensing
spelling doaj-art-5403be2ff9fc404bbe45efe283568d8a2025-08-20T03:28:37ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922025-06-011713217710.3390/rs17132177Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object DetectionJingwen Zhao0Jianchao Li1Wei Zhou2Haohao Ren3Yunliang Long4Haifeng Hu5School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, ChinaSchool of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, ChinaSchool of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, ChinaSchool of Information and Communication Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, ChinaSchool of Cyber Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, ChinaSchool of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, ChinaLiDAR-based 3D object detection is fundamental in autonomous driving but remains challenging due to the irregularity, unordered nature, and non-uniform density of point clouds. Existing methods primarily rely on either graph-based or tree-based representations: Graph-based models capture fine-grained local geometry, while tree-based approaches encode hierarchical global semantics. However, these paradigms are often used independently, limiting their overall representational capacity. In this paper, we propose density-aware tree–graph cross-message passing (DA-TGCMP), a unified framework that exploits the complementary strengths of both structures to enable more expressive and robust feature learning. Specifically, we introduce a density-aware graph construction (DAGC) strategy that adaptively models geometric relationships in regions with varying point density and a hierarchical tree representation (HTR) that captures multi-scale contextual information. To bridge the gap between local precision and global contexts, we design a tree–graph cross-message-passing (TGCMP) mechanism that enables bidirectional interaction between graph and tree features. The experimental results of three large-scale benchmarks, KITTI, nuScenes, and Waymo, show that our method achieves competitive performance. Specifically, under the moderate difficulty setting, DA-TGCMP outperforms VoPiFNet by approximately 2.59%, 0.49%, and 3.05% in the car, pedestrian, and cyclist categories, respectively.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2177LiDAR3D object detectionDensity AwareTree–Graph Cross-Message PassingHierarchical Tree Representation
spellingShingle Jingwen Zhao
Jianchao Li
Wei Zhou
Haohao Ren
Yunliang Long
Haifeng Hu
Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
Remote Sensing
LiDAR
3D object detection
Density Aware
Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing
Hierarchical Tree Representation
title Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
title_full Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
title_fullStr Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
title_full_unstemmed Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
title_short Density-Aware Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing for LiDAR Point Cloud 3D Object Detection
title_sort density aware tree graph cross message passing for lidar point cloud 3d object detection
topic LiDAR
3D object detection
Density Aware
Tree–Graph Cross-Message Passing
Hierarchical Tree Representation
url https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17/13/2177
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