# BallGAN: 3D-aware Image Synthesis with a Spherical Background

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.09091 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09091/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 44 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jan 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 44)

- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Progressive Growing of GANs for Improved Quality, Stability, and Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10196/) (2017)
- [Fourier Features Let Networks Learn High Frequency Functions in Low Dimensional Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10739/) (2020)
- [Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12077/) (2021)
- [Mip-NeRF: A Multiscale Representation for Anti-Aliasing Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.13415/) (2021)
- [Magic3D: High-Resolution Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10440/) (2022)
- [TensoRF: Tensorial Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09517/) (2022)
- [Efficient Geometry-aware 3D Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07945/) (2021)
- [Alias-Free Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12423/) (2021)
- [StarGAN v2: Diverse Image Synthesis for Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01865/) (2019)
- [StyleCLIP: Text-Driven Manipulation of StyleGAN Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17249/) (2021)
- [NeRF++: Analyzing and Improving Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07492/) (2020)
- [GIRAFFE: Representing Scenes as Compositional Generative Neural Feature Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12100/) (2020)
- [pi-GAN: Periodic Implicit Generative Adversarial Networks for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00926/) (2020)
- [Interpreting the Latent Space of GANs for Semantic Face Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10786/) (2019)
- [GRAF: Generative Radiance Fields for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02442/) (2020)
- [Which Training Methods for GANs do actually Converge?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.04406/) (2018)
- [GANSpace: Discovering Interpretable GAN Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02546/) (2020)
- [Learning a Probabilistic Latent Space of Object Shapes via 3D Generative-Adversarial Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07584/) (2016)
- [Zero-Shot Text-Guided Object Generation with Dream Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01455/) (2021)
- [Accurate 3D Face Reconstruction with Weakly-Supervised Learning: From Single Image to Image Set](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08527/) (2019)
- [StyleNeRF: A Style-based 3D-Aware Generator for High-resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08985/) (2021)
- [Pivotal Tuning for Latent-based Editing of Real Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05744/) (2021)
- [Closed-Form Factorization of Latent Semantics in GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.06600/) (2020)
- [StyleSDF: High-Resolution 3D-Consistent Image and Geometry Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11427/) (2021)
- [Escaping Plato's Cave: 3D Shape From Adversarial Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11606/) (2018)
- [BlockGAN: Learning 3D Object-aware Scene Representations from Unlabelled Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08988/) (2020)
- [Dream3D: Zero-Shot Text-to-3D Synthesis Using 3D Shape Prior and Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.14704/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [LPFF: A Portrait Dataset for Face Generators Across Large Poses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14407/) (2023)
- [Learning to Generate Conditional Tri-plane for 3D-aware Expression Controllable Portrait Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00636/) (2024)
- [OrthoPlanes: A Novel Representation for Better 3D-Awareness of GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15830/) (2023)
- [SideGAN: 3D-Aware Generative Model for Improved Side-View Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10388/) (2023)
- [MaTe3D: Mask-guided Text-based 3D-aware Portrait Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06947/) (2023)
- [Learning 3D-Aware GANs from Unposed Images with Template Feature Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.05705/) (2024)
- [MVCustom: Multi-View Customized Diffusion via Geometric Latent Rendering and Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13702/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

3D-aware GANs aim to synthesize realistic 3D scenes such that they can be rendered in arbitrary perspectives to produce images. Although previous methods produce realistic images, they suffer from unstable training or degenerate solutions where the 3D geometry is unnatural. We hypothesize that the 3D geometry is underdetermined due to the insufficient constraint, i.e., being classified as real image to the discriminator is not enough. To solve this problem, we propose to approximate the background as a spherical surface and represent a scene as a union of the foreground placed in the sphere and the thin spherical background. It reduces the degree of freedom in the background field. Accordingly, we modify the volume rendering equation and incorporate dedicated constraints to design a novel 3D-aware GAN framework named BallGAN. BallGAN has multiple advantages as follows. 1) It produces more reasonable 3D geometry; the images of a scene across different viewpoints have better photometric consistency and fidelity than the state-of-the-art methods. 2) The training becomes much more stable. 3) The foreground can be separately rendered on top of different arbitrary backgrounds.