mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Instant Volumetric Head Avatars

arXiv 2211.12499 ↗First posted 22 Nov 2022cs.CVcited by 157

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Abstract (arXiv)

We present Instant Volumetric Head Avatars (INSTA), a novel approach for reconstructing photo-realistic digital avatars instantaneously. INSTA models a dynamic neural radiance field based on neural graphics primitives embedded around a parametric face model. Our pipeline is trained on a single monocular RGB portrait video that observes the subject under different expressions and views. While state-of-the-art methods take up to several days to train an avatar, our method can reconstruct a digital avatar in less than 10 minutes on modern GPU hardware, which is orders of magnitude faster than previous solutions. In addition, it allows for the interactive rendering of novel poses and expressions. By leveraging the geometry prior of the underlying parametric face model, we demonstrate that INSTA extrapolates to unseen poses. In quantitative and qualitative studies on various subjects, INSTA outperforms state-of-the-art methods regarding rendering quality and training time.

Key facts. Cited by 157 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 41 of its 67 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Nov 2022.

Builds on

41 of 67 references.

References · 41

  1. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
  2. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  3. 2022Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encodingcited by 3,698
  4. 2021Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 2,013
  5. 2021Mip-NeRF: A Multiscale Representation for Anti-Aliasing Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 1,957
  6. 2021Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networkscited by 1,607
  7. 2020D-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Dynamic Scenescited by 1,459
  8. 2022TensoRF: Tensorial Radiance Fieldscited by 1,275
  9. 2020Nerfies: Deformable Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 1,194
  10. 2019FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Imagescited by 1,095
  11. 2020Neural Sparse Voxel Fieldscited by 959
  12. 2020NeRF++: Analyzing and Improving Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 857
29 more
  1. 2020Neural Scene Flow Fields for Space-Time View Synthesis of Dynamic Scenescited by 750
  2. 2021Depth-supervised NeRF: Fewer Views and Faster Training for Freecited by 732
  3. 2022Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesiscited by 720
  4. 2020Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videoscited by 631
  5. 2021RegNeRF: Regularizing Neural Radiance Fields for View Synthesis from Sparse Inputscited by 614
  6. 2019MediaPipe: A Framework for Building Perception Pipelinescited by 572
  7. 2021Ref-NeRF: Structured View-Dependent Appearance for Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 569
  8. 2020Non-Rigid Neural Radiance Fields: Reconstruction and Novel View Synthesis of a Dynamic Scene From Monocular Videocited by 470
  9. 2020Dynamic Neural Radiance Fields for Monocular 4D Facial Avatar Reconstructioncited by 465
  10. 2019Soft Rasterizer: A Differentiable Renderer for Image-based 3D Reasoningcited by 420
  11. 2021NeRF in the Dark: High Dynamic Range View Synthesis from Noisy Raw Imagescited by 336
  12. 2021Neural RGB-D Surface Reconstructioncited by 312
  13. 2021Dense Depth Priors for Neural Radiance Fields from Sparse Input Viewscited by 301
  14. 2020BiSeNet V2: Bilateral Network with Guided Aggregation for Real-time Semantic Segmentationcited by 294
  15. 2021Mixture of Volumetric Primitives for Efficient Neural Renderingcited by 277
  16. 2020State of the Art on Neural Renderingcited by 276
  17. 2020Neural Radiance Flow for 4D View Synthesis and Video Processingcited by 270
  18. 2021I M Avatar: Implicit Morphable Head Avatars from Videoscited by 230
  19. 2019Learning to Predict 3D Objects with an Interpolation-based Differentiable Renderercited by 221
  20. 2021SNARF: Differentiable Forward Skinning for Animating Non-Rigid Neural Implicit Shapescited by 221
  21. 2021Neural Head Avatars from Monocular RGB Videoscited by 212
  22. 2021HyperNeRF: A Higher-Dimensional Representation for Topologically Varying Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 210
  23. 2021NerfingMVS: Guided Optimization of Neural Radiance Fields for Indoor Multi-view Stereocited by 191
  24. 2022Towards Metrical Reconstruction of Human Facescited by 165
  25. 2021Robust High-Resolution Video Matting with Temporal Guidancecited by 136
  26. 2022Reconstructing Personalized Semantic Facial NeRF Models From Monocular Videocited by 128
  27. 2021Neural Actor: Neural Free-view Synthesis of Human Actors with Pose Controlcited by 106
  28. 2022Surface-Aligned Neural Radiance Fields for Controllable 3D Human Synthesiscited by 41
  29. 2022VolTeMorph: Realtime, Controllable and Generalisable Animation of Volumetric Representationscited by 36

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 1; 2023: 34; 2024: 42; 2025: 45; 2026: 35.

157 papers.

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  1. 2023GaussianAvatars: Photorealistic Head Avatars with Rigged 3D Gaussianscited by 256
  2. 2023NeRSemble: Multi-view Radiance Field Reconstruction of Human Headscited by 190
  3. 2022PointAvatar: Deformable Point-based Head Avatars from Videoscited by 183
  4. 2024SplattingAvatar: Realistic Real-Time Human Avatars with Mesh-Embedded Gaussian Splattingcited by 171
  5. 2023Relightable Gaussian Codec Avatarscited by 126
  6. 2023GART: Gaussian Articulated Template Modelscited by 121
  7. 2023FlashAvatar: High-fidelity Head Avatar with Efficient Gaussian Embeddingcited by 107
  8. 2023MonoGaussianAvatar: Monocular Gaussian Point-based Head Avatarcited by 89
  9. 2023SyncTalk: The Devil is in the Synchronization for Talking Head Synthesiscited by 86
  10. 2024GPAvatar: Generalizable and Precise Head Avatar from Image(s)cited by 74
  11. 2024Advances in 3D Generation: A Surveycited by 62
  12. 2023HeadGaS: Real-Time Animatable Head Avatars via 3D Gaussian Splattingcited by 60
38 more
  1. 2023StyleAvatar: Real-time Photo-realistic Portrait Avatar from a Single Videocited by 52
  2. 2024CAP4D: Creating Animatable 4D Portrait Avatars with Morphable Multi-View Diffusion Modelscited by 52
  3. 2025Avat3r: Large Animatable Gaussian Reconstruction Model for High-fidelity 3D Head Avatarscited by 52
  4. 2023LatentAvatar: Learning Latent Expression Code for Expressive Neural Head Avatarcited by 50
  5. 2023HeadSculpt: Crafting 3D Head Avatars with Textcited by 48
  6. 2023GaussianHead: High-fidelity Head Avatars with Learnable Gaussian Derivationcited by 46
  7. 2024HeadGAP: Few-Shot 3D Head Avatar via Generalizable Gaussian Priorscited by 44
  8. 2023DiffusionAvatars: Deferred Diffusion for High-fidelity 3D Head Avatarscited by 42
  9. 2023Text-Guided Generation and Editing of Compositional 3D Avatarscited by 39
  10. 2024MeGA: Hybrid Mesh-Gaussian Head Avatar for High-Fidelity Rendering and Head Editingcited by 37
  11. 2024GAF: Gaussian Avatar Reconstruction from Monocular Videos via Multi-view Diffusioncited by 36
  12. 2023HHAvatar: Gaussian Head Avatar with Dynamic Hairscited by 35
  13. 2024Human Hair Reconstruction with Strand-Aligned 3D Gaussianscited by 35
  14. 2023Towards Practical Capture of High-Fidelity Relightable Avatarscited by 34
  15. 2023VOODOO 3D: Volumetric Portrait Disentanglement for One-Shot 3D Head Reenactmentcited by 33
  16. 2024HeadStudio: Text to Animatable Head Avatars with 3D Gaussian Splattingcited by 33
  17. 2024FATE: Full-head Gaussian Avatar with Textural Editing from Monocular Videocited by 31
  18. 2025Lux Post Facto: Learning Portrait Performance Relighting with Conditional Video Diffusion and a Hybrid Datasetcited by 28
  19. 2023LaughTalk: Expressive 3D Talking Head Generation with Laughtercited by 27
  20. 2025RGBAvatar: Reduced Gaussian Blendshapes for Online Modeling of Head Avatarscited by 27
  21. 2023VMesh: Hybrid Volume-Mesh Representation for Efficient View Synthesiscited by 25
  22. 2025HRAvatar: High-Quality and Relightable Gaussian Head Avatarcited by 24
  23. 2024Morphable Diffusion: 3D-Consistent Diffusion for Single-image Avatar Creationcited by 23
  24. 2024Gaussian Eigen Models for Human Headscited by 21
  25. 2024Real-time 3D-aware Portrait Video Relightingcited by 21
  26. 2024VRMM: A Volumetric Relightable Morphable Head Modelcited by 19
  27. 2024PSAvatar: A Point-based Shape Model for Real-Time Head Avatar Animation with 3D Gaussian Splattingcited by 17
  28. 2024iHuman: Instant Animatable Digital Humans From Monocular Videoscited by 17
  29. 2024Tri2-plane: Thinking Head Avatar via Feature Pyramidcited by 16
  30. 2024Rig3DGS: Creating Controllable Portraits from Casual Monocular Videoscited by 16
  31. 20233DiFACE: Diffusion-based Speech-driven 3D Facial Animation and Editingcited by 15
  32. 2024SurFhead: Affine Rig Blending for Geometrically Accurate 2D Gaussian Surfel Head Avatarscited by 15
  33. 2024PERSE: Personalized 3D Generative Avatars from A Single Portraitcited by 15
  34. 2023GAN-Avatar: Controllable Personalized GAN-based Human Head Avatarcited by 14
  35. 2025Synthetic Prior for Few-Shot Drivable Head Avatar Inversioncited by 14
  36. 20253D Gaussian Head Avatars with Expressive Dynamic Appearances by Compact Tensorial Representationscited by 13
  37. 2024GeneAvatar: Generic Expression-Aware Volumetric Head Avatar Editing from a Single Imagecited by 12
  38. 2025TaoAvatar: Real-Time Lifelike Full-Body Talking Avatars for Augmented Reality via 3D Gaussian Splattingcited by 11

50 most cited of 157 All 157 (JSON)