# 3D Human Modeling: Parametric Body Models, Mesh Recovery, and Digital Avatars
Status: public
Confidence: medium (0.84) (verified)
Last verified: 2026-05-28
Generation: ai_structured

## TL;DR
3D human modeling estimates body shape, pose, and mesh geometry from images or video. The public evidence here is narrowed to three well-specified sources: SMPL for parametric body modeling, HMR for single-image mesh recovery, and SMPL-X for hands and face.

## Core Explanation
SMPL made 3D human modeling practical by representing body shape and pose with a compact, learned, animatable model. HMR then showed how a neural model could infer SMPL pose and shape from a single RGB image. SMPL-X broadened the representation to include hands and facial expression, which is important for expressive avatars and richer human capture.

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