# Panoptic Multi-TSDFs: a Flexible Representation for Online Multi-resolution Volumetric Mapping and Long-term Dynamic Scene Consistency

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.10165 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.10165/

## Key facts

- Cited by 39 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [SemGauss-SLAM: Dense Semantic Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07494/) (2024)
- [3D VSG: Long-term Semantic Scene Change Prediction through 3D Variable Scene Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.07896/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Continual Semantic Adaptation through Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13969/) (2022)
- [From SLAM to Situational Awareness: Challenges and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.00273/) (2021)
- [Panoptic Mapping with Fruit Completion and Pose Estimation for Horticultural Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08923/) (2023)
- [AirPlanes: Accurate Plane Estimation via 3D-Consistent Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08960/) (2024)
- [ConvBKI: Real-Time Probabilistic Semantic Mapping Network with Quantifiable Uncertainty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16020/) (2023)
- [NeuSE: Neural SE(3)-Equivariant Embedding for Long-Term Object-Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07308/) (2023)
- [Convolutional Bayesian Kernel Inference for 3D Semantic Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10663/) (2022)
- [ObVi-SLAM: Long-Term Object-Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15268/) (2023)
- [Robust Change Detection Based on Neural Descriptor Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01014/) (2022)
- [SC-Explorer: Incremental 3D Scene Completion for Safe and Efficient Exploration Mapping and Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.08307/) (2022)
- [Neural Implicit Vision-Language Feature Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10962/) (2023)
- [On the Overconfidence Problem in Semantic 3D Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10018/) (2023)
- [PanopticNDT: Efficient and Robust Panoptic Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13635/) (2023)
- [DualMap: Online Open-Vocabulary Semantic Mapping for Natural Language Navigation in Dynamic Changing Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01950/) (2025)
- [SCIM: Simultaneous Clustering, Inference, and Mapping for Open-World Semantic Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10670/) (2022)
- [Multimodal 3D Fusion and In-Situ Learning for Spatially Aware AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04652/) (2024)
- [SceneDiff: A Benchmark and Method for Multiview Object Change Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16908/) (2025)
- [PlaneSDF-based Change Detection for Long-term Dense Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08323/) (2022)
- [EvidMTL: Evidential Multi-Task Learning for Uncertainty-Aware Semantic Surface Mapping from Monocular RGB Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04441/) (2025)
- [Gaussian Mapping for Evolving Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06909/) (2025)
- [Changes in Real Time: Online Scene Change Detection with Multi-View Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12370/) (2025)
- [Real-Time Metric-Semantic Mapping for Autonomous Navigation in Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00291/) (2024)
- [Volumetric Mapping with Panoptic Refinement via Kernel Density Estimation for Mobile Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11241/) (2024)
- [Perpetua: Multi-Hypothesis Persistence Modeling for Semi-Static Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18808/) (2025)
- [Mapping the Unseen: Unified Promptable Panoptic Mapping with Dynamic Labeling using Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02162/) (2024)
- [QueryAdapter: Rapid Adaptation of Vision-Language Models in Response to Natural Language Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18735/) (2025)
- [Dynamic Objects Relocalization in Changing Environments with Flow Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16398/) (2025)
- [Efficient Prediction of Dense Visual Embeddings via Distillation and RGB-D Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00359/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

For robotic interaction in environments shared with other agents, access to volumetric and semantic maps of the scene is crucial. However, such environments are inevitably subject to long-term changes, which the map needs to account for. We thus propose panoptic multi-TSDFs as a novel representation for multi-resolution volumetric mapping in changing environments. By leveraging high-level information for 3D reconstruction, our proposed system allocates high resolution only where needed. Through reasoning on the object level, semantic consistency over time is achieved. This enables our method to maintain up-to-date reconstructions with high accuracy while improving coverage by incorporating previous data. We show in thorough experimental evaluation that our map can be efficiently constructed, maintained, and queried during online operation, and that the presented approach can operate robustly on real depth sensors using non-optimized panoptic segmentation as input.