This work proposes a modular geometric deep learning framework that isolates shape variability associated with a given scalar factor (e.g., age) within a population (e.g., healthy individuals). Our approach leverages a novel graph convolution operator in a variational autoencoder to process 3D mesh data and learn a meaningful, low-dimensional shape descriptor. A supervised disentanglement strategy aligns a single component of this descriptor to the factor of interest during training. On a toy synthetic dataset and a high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) dataset, the proposed model is better able to disentangle the learned latent space with a simulated factor and patient age, respectively, relative to other state-of-the-art methods. The relationship between age and shape estimated in the DTI analysis is consistent with existing neuroimaging literature. The corresponding paper can be found in the doc directory of this repository.
