mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

A Review on Viewpoints and Path-planning for UAV-based 3D Reconstruction

arXiv 2205.03716 ↗First posted 7 May 2022cs.CV cs.GR cs.ROcited by 14

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Abstract (arXiv)

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used platforms to carry data capturing sensors for various applications. The reason for this success can be found in many aspects: the high maneuverability of the UAVs, the capability of performing autonomous data acquisition, flying at different heights, and the possibility to reach almost any vantage point. The selection of appropriate viewpoints and planning the optimum trajectories of UAVs is an emerging topic that aims at increasing the automation, efficiency and reliability of the data capturing process to achieve a dataset with desired quality. On the other hand, 3D reconstruction using the data captured by UAVs is also attracting attention in research and industry. This review paper investigates a wide range of model-free and model-based algorithms for viewpoint and path planning for 3D reconstruction of large-scale objects. The analyzed approaches are limited to those that employ a single-UAV as a data capturing platform for outdoor 3D reconstruction purposes. In addition to discussing the evaluation strategies, this paper also highlights the innovations and limitations of the investigated approaches. It concludes with a critical analysis of the existing challenges and future research perspectives.

Key facts. Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 37 of its 213 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2022.

Builds on

37 of 213 references.

References · 37

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  12. 2019An Efficient Sampling-based Method for Online Informative Path Planning in Unknown Environmentscited by 40
25 more
  1. 2020Next-Best View Policy for 3D Reconstructioncited by 35
  2. 2014On the folded normal distributioncited by 31
  3. 2020Fast Frontier-based Information-driven Autonomous Exploration with an MAVcited by 24
  4. 2017Submodular Trajectory Optimization for Aerial 3D Scanningcited by 16
  5. 2018Learn-to-Score: Efficient 3D Scene Exploration by Predicting View Utilitycited by 15
  6. 2022Where to Look Next: Learning Viewpoint Recommendations for Informative Trajectory Planningcited by 14
  7. 2020A Multi-Resolution Frontier-Based Planner for Autonomous 3D Explorationcited by 12
  8. 2016Online Informative Path Planning for Active Classification Using UAVscited by 11
  9. 2016A Reinforcement Learning Approach to the View Planning Problemcited by 10
  10. 2020Viewpoint Planning for Fruit Size and Position Estimationcited by 9
  11. 2021A Shadowcasting-Based Next-Best-View Planner for Autonomous 3D Explorationcited by 9
  12. 2020Multi-UAV Coverage Path Planning for the Inspection of Large and Complex Structurescited by 7
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  14. 2016UAV-based Autonomous Image Acquisition with Multi-View Stereo Quality Assurance by Confidence Predictioncited by 6
  15. 2018Adaptive View Planning for Aerial 3D Reconstructioncited by 5
  16. 2020Do You See What I See? Coordinating Multiple Aerial Cameras for Robot Cinematographycited by 4
  17. 2021REAL: Rapid Exploration with Active Loop-Closing toward Large-Scale 3D Mapping using UAVscited by 4
  18. 2019Coverage Path Planning using Path Primitive Sampling and Primitive Coverage Graph for Visual Inspectioncited by 3
  19. 2021VGF-Net: Visual-Geometric Fusion Learning for Simultaneous Drone Navigation and Height Mappingcited by 3
  20. 2022Exploration with Global Consistency Using Real-Time Re-integration and Active Loop Closurecited by 3
  21. 2021Adaptive Path Planning for UAV-based Multi-Resolution Semantic Segmentationcited by 2
  22. 2017View Selection with Geometric Uncertainty Modelingcited by 1
  23. 2019Near-Optimal Path Planning for Complex Robotic Inspection Taskscited by 1
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  25. 2022Spiral Trajectories for Building Inspection with Quadrotorscited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 3; 2025: 8; 2026: 2.

14 papers.

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  1. 2025GauSS-MI: Gaussian Splatting Shannon Mutual Information for Active 3D Reconstructioncited by 17
  2. 2025UAVs Meet Agentic AI: A Multidomain Survey of Autonomous Aerial Intelligence and Agentic UAVscited by 13
  3. 2023Bag of Views: An Appearance-based Approach to Next-Best-View Planning for 3D Reconstructioncited by 2
  4. 2025A Review on Geometry and Surface Inspection in 3D Concrete Printingcited by 2
  5. 2025DM-OSVP++: One-Shot View Planning Using 3D Diffusion Models for Active RGB-Based Object Reconstructioncited by 2
  6. 2025STT-GS: Sample-Then-Transmit Edge Gaussian Splatting with Joint Client Selection and Power Controlcited by 2
  7. 2024DiffPoint: Single and Multi-view Point Cloud Reconstruction with ViT Based Diffusion Modelcited by 1
  8. 2024A New Clustering-based View Planning Method for Building Inspection with Dronecited by 1
  9. 2025UAVLight: A Benchmark for Illumination-Robust 3D Reconstruction in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Scenescited by 1
  10. 2025On-the-fly Feedback SfM: Online Explore-and-Exploit UAV Photogrammetry with Incremental Mesh Quality-Aware Indicator and Predictive Path Planningcited by 1
  11. 2024Very High-Resolution Bridge Deformation Monitoring Using UAV-based Photogrammetrycited by 0
  12. 2025Neural 3D Object Reconstruction with Small-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehiclescited by 0
2 more
  1. 2026RefGlass-GS: A UAV-Enabled Fusion Framework for Photorealistic, Semantic and Interactive Digitization of Reflective Glass Facades via Gaussian Splattingcited by 0
  2. 2026DAPM: UAV Monocular Depth Estimation from Any Height, Pitch, Roll and FOVcited by 0